


Crashed the Wedding

by Britishgal



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/F, Fluff, Slowburn!Bechloe, wedding!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-14 13:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9184630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britishgal/pseuds/Britishgal
Summary: Chloe finds herself stuck in her hell scenario. The wedding of now five-year-running couple Jesse Swanson and Beca Mitchell. HER Beca Mitchell. Thank god it's only a dress rehearsal because Chloe has to tell her something, before it's too late.





	1. Snap Out of It

#  Crashed the Wedding

##  Snap Out of It

### Chapter 1

 

Weddings were stressful. Like really stressful. Beautiful, but stressful. Chloe knew this from the previous six she had attended. One of which had been as maid of honour for her perfectionist sister. So Chloe KNEW stressful weddings. Of course the one which she hadn't expected to be so horrid-

She takes another swig of whisky from her pink, rhinestone flask-

-was Beca's.

The golden liquid burns going down but Chloe doesn’t even flinch. She can see her slumped reflection in the wall to ceiling mirror across from her. Her steely blue eyes colder than probably anything this damn country has to offer. But then, she supposed all weddings sucked when the person you expected to marry was marrying someone else. It was just bad luck she happened to be one of them. The musty closet was a nice hide-away when she was feeling like this. It was a great find yesterday when Jesse had sent her off to find the champagne holders for the reception. She'd found the holders. She'd picked them up. Handed them right into his smug little arms. Should've made him do it.

"Chloe!?" The yelling comes in the dark. "Chloe?!"

Oh crap. Legacy was looking for her. She sits completely motionless against the door. Figuring out what possible excuses she can use if the youngster decides to take a look in here.

"She's not here down here Cynthia maybe you'll have better luck upstairs?"

Wow, not even bothering to check the closet? Lazy b-

"What? Yes, I've checked everywhere! It's a dead end down here, just some broom closet, and I don't think she'd be in there."

Chloe's not really sure if she should be offended...

"Okay, I'll check there again. I'll tell Amy to get back to Beca, she's probably freaking out."

"I know I am."

She can just make out that that's Benji. Dude has way too much time on his hands. Although she is immensely grateful he took care of the flower arrangements. The orchids look beautiful. The man is more gifted than people give him credit for- and despite everything, Chloe does sort of majorly respect Jesse's kindness toward him. She shifts her ginger mane over her right shoulder and presses her head against the wooden door, trying to hear their muffled footsteps disappear. She lies there motionless until they do. Then steadily, she rises to her feet and turns the knob to leave. _Time to face your fears Beale._

But Chloe can't seem to stop the nervous flips her stomach keeps pulling as she steps into the light.

\----

"Have you found Chloe yet?" Beca asks as she spots Amy walk back in. "I really um, need her to help me get the pinning on this veil right..."

Beca flinches as she somehow manages to prick her scalp on a needle once again.

"Son of a-" she starts.

"You know you could've waited for Chloe to actually come in before you put it on, I'm surprised you haven't ripped a hole in it." Amy says.

"Yeah but I wanted it to be a surprise! She hasn’t seen it yet because she couldn’t make it to the fitting." Beca smiles. She looks sort of hot. Okay she definitely does, she notes, eyeing her reflection in the mirror. She actually feels pretty? Ew, what? And she's smiling? And it's all thanks to Stacie and Jessica and Ashley. (Ashley's dad owns a wedding dress shop, how cool is that?)

"Yeah she's sort of been a shitty maid of honour. I've had to do like- EVERYTHING here."

Beca raises an eyebrow.

"We planned on getting married in Australia anyway Amy."

"And I leant you one of my guest houses! That's kinda sort of better than picking out a cake." The blonde contributes exasperated. Then moves into falsetto. "Oh thank you Amy, you're so great and also attractive. And you can totally have the rest of the wine and our wedding vouchers after we're married."

Beca can't help but laugh.

"I don't sound like that!"

"Um yeah short stack- kind of do. Especially around Jesse-"

"No I don’t!"

"OH Jesse!"Amy continues. Beca can feel her face turning red.

"Oh my god, no I don’t, just find Chloe!" She continues between smiles.

 _"JESSE!"_ Amy continues as she leaves the room again.

"If I could get down from this stool!" Beca yells after her. "And thanks for the guest house!" But she feels her smile fade when the door shuts. Where the hell is Chloe? She promised...

\----

It's the dress rehearsal today. Chloe knows it is. She was hoping that the cupboard and whisky would provide a little courage so she could emotionally make it through this, but honestly she just feels all the more bitter. She managed to fake the way through the fitting by pretending to have the flu. Luckily with all the excitement Beca happened to buy it at the time. Ironically at the moment she happens to feel genuinely nauseous. Life was a pitch that way.

She doesn’t want this wedding to happen. Ohhhh god she doesn’t want this wedding to happen. Chloe needs a massive hug from Bree right now, and is tempted to text her to stop arranging the chairs so they can meet out front and she can just take her home. Aubrey Posen is the only person on this planet bar her mother who knows just how badly in love with Beca Mitchell she really is. And Chloe can't tell another soul. Though Bree has yet to understand why Chloe loves her, at least she's with her on boycotting this wedding. Being bitter alone isn't fun at all. She tells herself to suck it up. As Beca's best friend, and maid of honour, she just needs to suck it up. So she tries, grunting as a swig is taken from the flask. She feels the last of it drain past her tongue. Shit that was her second and only remaining flask.

It's 11am.

...Today was going to be long. Maybe she could steal some of the wedding Prosecco? She gives herself a once over as she walks past the hallway mirror. It was probably an awful idea to wear her bridesmaid's dress to sit down in a dusty old closet wasn’t it? Especially a cream one, but hey; She stuffs the flask back into her fitted black blazer. It can't have been that dusty in there cuz this place was fancy. They probably cleaned closets too. Do you clean a closet? Chloe figured that would make sense. Who'd clean stuff with unclean equipment right? Her fingers falter on Beca's doorknob. She glances down what now seems like the impossibly long corridor. Without thinking she shoves her way in. Get in, get out, make any excuse to leave. She doesn't even need to look up.

"Hey!"

Her voice is home. She can't look up. Oh god this was a mistake.

"Hey... um sorry I'm late and all. I was busy making things happen, but I'm here. What do you need?" Chloe gibbers. She knows she's gibbering. Chloe is a wreck. She prays Beca can't see it. She continues to stare at the floor, moving behind the tiny brunette in an attempt to hide her face.

"Oh um-" She hears Beca say. "I was sort of wondering if you could help me with my hair, but like if you're busy it's fine um-"

"Yeah listen, Aubrey's doing chairs, and I should go and help-" She stops herself. Even she doesn't buy her lie. And she can't lie to Beca. She can't do this. Her slim hands nervously crinkle her dress fabric, but she forces them to stop. _**Yes** , she can._ She can do this, she can help, for Beca she can- Chloe is in the middle of reassuring herself when she fucks up. She looks up at the floor to ceiling mirror. At Beca. At Beca Mitchell in a wedding dress. Beca Mitchell grinning from ear to ear. _At Chloe._

                                           

                                                Wow.

                                                              That dress.

 _Dammit Stace._ She swallows down her attraction. Down girl.

"You look great by the way! You always look great." Beca mumbles bashfully, and Chloe realizes that this is the first time they've actually seen each other in person since the hen-do last week. She doesn't remember a lot about it. She was mostly blackout drunk in the corner. Trying to ignore the semi-naked stripper grinding up on Beca's body. But then he was on _her_ body, because as Amy later informed her, she totally made a move aaand well, that would explain why he was in her bed the day after. Drunk her was such a slut.

"Me? Beca you look-"

There's so many adjectives she wants to use. Intoxicating, ethereally beautiful, gorgeous, but she doesn't. Because then she remembers why. That this isn't for her. Not like she wants it to be. It never would be. It was for _him_ , for Jesse, the guy who actually had the guts to tell the DJ how he felt right from the beginning. He didn't wait, he didn’t give her the slightest chance to look at another person, because he knew and was smart and she should've done the same. Her words catch in her throat.

"...You look wonderful. Stacie really came through. Here I'll help with your hair."

She steps onto the podium located behind Beca's own and raises her shaky hands to the pearl hair slips. Beca starts to speak and she tries to listen she really does, but she's too lost in her own anxieties to respond fully. So she just grins when she mentions Jesse, pretends it's nothing like being stabbed repeatedly in the chest. She has a responsibility to her as her maid of honour, as her best friend. So she has to be amicable.

So be nice Chloe Beale, She chides. Good Chloe Beale, NICE, GOOD, NICE-

"Ow!"

The noise snaps her back into reality.

"Shit, Chloe!" Beca says.

"Sorry! Sorry!" She mumbles back half heartedly. She needs to get a grip, and not the one in her hand. Wow ironic. Beca is rubbing her sore pin pricked head as delicately as she can, but her annoyed expression is obvious.

"Are you?" Beca shoots back and Chloe sees her face in the mirror.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you don’t seem with it recently, Amy's right. The more I think about it, the more I realise; what HAVE you done for this? I mean you're supposed to be my maid of honour and you missed me picking out my dress, the reception choice-”

She physically flinches at the sight of Beca counting her mistakes on her fingers.

“-the cake choice- and I just talked to Jesse you weren't helping him at all outside. So where were you?"

Where was she…

Beca huffs in frustration, something she only does when she’s incredibly upset.

" _Answer_ _me,_  Chloe!"

Oh god her face. The small brunette looks so upset Chloe's afraid she might actually start crying, and if Beca goes she'll definitely go and then there will just be a crying heap of women on the floor. No one wants to deal with that. She has to be honest with her. Chloe's never lied to Beca, at least before this encounter, ever. Concealed the truth about her feelings for her maybe, but that's all.

"I was... I was in a closet."

“…what?”

“I was in a closet, look it's not important right now, what is, is getting you ready. And I’m sorry I lied to you and I won’t again and we’ll leave it there, so let's do this.”

“A closet?”

The disbelief of her face is making this a bit awkward. Shit, okay, the truth was apparently a mistake. I mean _obviously_ it was going to be, dammit Chloe.

“Well-“

Beca brushes Chloe’s hand away for her hair.

“No of course you were. Getting off with someone right? When I needed you. Like at the hen-do all over.”

“Excuse me?” Okay now Chloe can't help but be a little offended. If Beca had said she’d needed her Chloe would’ve been there in a heart beat, but she hadn’t known she’d needed her. Apparently because Beca can’t ever talk about how she’s feeling like a normal person. She’d looked fine out there on the dance floor with Stacie grinding up on her waist. Her petite body moving perfectly to the bass of whatever house anthem had been playing. She remembered her heart hurting at that point. The brunette had come so far in the last four years. It was an effort to even get her to leave her apartment in freshman year to socialise but now… the strobing and darkness had made that scene look so hot. Oh my gosh Chloe was so gay.

“Well if you weren't getting off with someone Chloe what the hell were you doing?”

As usual Beca’s voice bought her out of her day dreams.

“I was- I was um-“ the whiskey has not improved her ability to lie, it seems.

“Getting off with someone.”

Beca inserted for her yet again, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. It was getting difficult to remain calm. Especially when such reductionistic assumptions were being made about her.

“ _NO_ , Beca I was-“

“YOU WERE WHAT?” Beca finally yells. Her impatient expression reflected in the mirror. Chloe still hadn't mustered to courage to look at the real her yet. Maybe it's time she did. She channeled a deep breath of air through her lungs. Beca doesn’t let her speak.

“I needed you that night. I was having second thoughts about the wedding. I was doubting myself _so_ much and you know what happened? AUBREY of all people had to help me get my shit together. _Aubrey,_ Chloe!”

She… was? Shit, that could’ve been her chance to tell her the truth. Chloe was just trying to get a hold of her jealousy at the time. She wasn’t mad at Aubrey for hiding this from her though, although she might have been before now. She wasn’t mad at all. Her best friend did the right thing in convincing Beca to stay in her marriage. At least Chloe assumed that must have been the outcome as well, they were here weren’t they? Beca loved Jesse so it was the right thing. So she could let this go.

“You doubted the wedding?”

Chloe asks anyway. The tinge of joy in her words obvious if you were looking for it. Betrayed. Her subconscious was a double agent.

“Yes.” Beca openly admits.

And stupidly her heart soars with hope at the confirmation. _Don’t get hopeful Beale, just tell her._

“Beca okay look at me.”

Weirdly this was easier with the brunette angry. Her little manicured nails were digging heavily into her hands, Chloe noticed. This was great, because well Chloe can barely handle that innocent face of Beca's when it’s looking at her in any form of favour. In those sorts of situations, Chloe's mind presumes things about what Beca’s thinking and lets her believe that her romantic feelings could actually be mutual, which they’re not- they’re not, but she considers that they might be. Just because she can see the DJ is genuinely fond of her, and she doesn't see that look used on any of the other Bella's, except maybe the legacy, but even then it's different slightly, like Beca sees her as a sister. Those special looks, cause waves of pain on her end, and she desperately wishes that they would stop. So when Beca is looking at her like this- with annoyance, to Chloe, well she’s not really her Beca anymore. Chloe can tell her the truth when she’s like this yeah. Then maybe once she has, once and for all she’ll be done with Beca Mitchell. Breathe. _Tell her._

“I can't let you get married. Or watch you get married. Or be at the wedding if it does go ahead, or all of the three.”

Both of them are silent a moment.

“What?”

**_I don’t know its confusing._ **

The word vomit is coming up, Chloe can feel it. Well she’s already half way in might as well go for it. Beales aren’t known to do anything half-assed anyway. That’s what her maw-maw taught her. When you commit, you commit right? She’s just gotta ignore that feeling of wanting to throw up for like two more minutes. Suddenly Aubrey’s experiences don’t seem so trivial anymore. When it finally comes out it’s like she’s out-of-body she’s dissociated so much. It’s worse that that time she tried molly (One time, and in her defense she thought it was a hello kitty vitamin pill.)

“I can't watch you get married to Jesse, Beca. Please. I'm really sorry, I'm so sorry, I should've told you way waaay earlier and I tried getting over it. At World’s I thought I finally had; but then you won it for us and I realised I hadn't-”

Its really hard to explain but Chloe can literally feel the pressure increasing inside her ears from the panic. It’s muffling what she can hear. God this feels gross but she keeps going. There are tears starting to well in her eyes. Somehow, with the pressure there's also silent ringing.

“-and I can't let you go by myself. Every time I try, I just don't have the will to, I just don't-”

“Chloe what?”

 _Chloe what?_ Beca’s voice repeats inside her head. Stops her ramble. Okay, she’s still not getting it. _Chloe what?_ She feels like asking herself. The pressure in her ears pops. _Just say it. SAY IT._

“I love you Beca.” Chloe blurts.

There's silence. Complete silence between them. Chloe doesn't know how long for but it’s deafening. She takes a couple of steps backwards before collapsing into the wicker chair in the corner of the room. The weight of the world removed from her shoulders to be replaced by a feeling of numbness. Her hand drags down her face. It’s finally out.

Beca’s just turned to stare at her blankly. She cant exactly move off the stool without ruining her dress, so her options are limited.

“Please says something.” Chloe adds tiredly.

It feels like it's been hours since either one of them has spoken.

“You don’t mean platonically, do you?”

The statement is so obvious its actually kinda laughable. Unfortunately Chloe isn’t in the mood. Beca could be such an idiot sometimes.

“...No.”

“For how long?” Beca asks.

She debates telling her. The time scale on the tip of her tongue. _Since the day I met you._ The words are right there. But to tell her everything, right now, would be impossible. She doesn't have the energy.

“Long enough.” She replies curtly.

“Chloe I… I love Jesse. I… I’m getting married in two days; I don’t know what you want me to say.”

She closes her eyes. Heart fracturing with every word the brunette says. It what she rationally expected. It would be a miracle to have expected Beca to say anything else. Now this was a matter of remaining honour. Chloe is always honest with Beca. This is her rule. She tried to break it today and it sucked ass and backfired within five minutes, so, Chloe can’t and won't lie to her. That’s not even an option. She considers what she wants. She could conceal the truth, with the right option, say that she understands this and is cool with just moving on, that's not a lie, Chloe had to do that anyway. But she doesn’t. Chloe is too much of a hopeless romantic not to say what she so desperately wants.

“I want you to say... that you love me. That I haven’t been hopelessly chasing you all this time.” Her voice is cracking, she swallows down the ball of ache in her throat. Chloe keeps her eyes shut. She can't face the DJ, not with this. “Tell me that- that you don’t feel it Beca. Tell me that I imagine seeing you checking me out sometimes, or that you don’t feel that ache when we don’t speak for days.”

Silence again. Chloe eventually summons up the courage to open her eyes. To meet a distraught looking DJ’s. But for a second a second she swears she sees understanding.

“I can’t.” Beca’s eyes break contact with her own and fall awkwardly to the floor. Its like the rest of Chloe’s heart implodes. The pain is so bad it leaves her speechless. How she doesn’t cry… _Fuck_. Her body stands her up on its own accord. Her hands tuck into her blazer pockets and she watches her high heeled feet awkwardly scuff the red carpet beneath her. Chloe looks anywhere but at the bride to be, before she makes her next irrational decision. She can't take the emotion in the room.

“I need to go.”

“Chloe…” Beca argues back weakly as the red head walks around her. Chloe doesn't even glance at her.

“CHLOE!”


	2. Jesse's Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry to put you guys through a chapter with Jesse in it but frankly, it's his wedding as well so he has to feature in this sadly. (I know, I know it sucks.) He won't be around a lot but he's needed now so- yeah. Thank you to the reviewers you've all been so kind it's wonderful.

##  Jesse's Girl

### Chapter 2

 

“Hey Chloe Beca’s looking for you.” Legacy smiles at her in the hallway as Chloe storms past, and she tries to smile back but can't manage it. She barely hears her actually. She's on the ground floor now, She’s flying out the hotel. Chloe doesn’t know where she’s going she’s on auto pilot and where does she even go? Her first instinct is Bree as it always is, but some immature part of her feels like she relies on her too much and puts her under too much pressure. Chloe wasn’t a child, she should be able to sort this out but right now, she needs somewhere private to collect herself and she would be damned if that was here.

Her options are limited, the house would be full of Bella’s before she knew what hit her when they all found out. Which they would in not time flat once Beca called someone. She couldn’t drive out of here, well she could call a taxi but it would still be too long not to be found. For a moment she reconsiders the closet then decides against it. Her heart is so sore. Chloe chokes back another sob. It was enough that the woman at the front desk had asked if she was alright because of course she wasn’t. Where else to go? There was the choice of the bar, gym or pool, all of which were too public and the only other option was the Australian wilderness. Death by any matter of animal seemed preferable at this point, seemed less painful than this. But her mama would be disappointed if they found her body all crisped up in the outback and she didn't like to disapoint her. Her mother that was it. Chloe would pack up and go home. It meant going back to the house, but what choice did she really have? She would book a ticket. Her pain would be gone by tomorrow or at least as far from her as it could possibly be.

\----

 He’s rushing to the room as fast as he can. As soon as he hears, he’s on the way. Jesse didn’t know how he knew that Beca and Chloe were going to get into a fight but he did. This had been brewing for an obscene amount of time.

“Beca!”

Shes wiping her eyes and weakly smiles as she sees him enter. He brings her into a full on hug. She's still standing on the podium in her dress.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine I’m… no I’m not. And you're not suposed to see me like this either! In my dress, it's unlucky!"

Jesse grins.

"You can't shove me out the way after I've given you a loving hug future Mrs Swanson that's so rude!"

"It wasnt a shove it was a gentle push." She says sadly. He hates seeing her upset.

"You look beautiful." He answers and Beca's face turns red. 

"I look red, blotchy and gross but thanks for lying about it."

Beca could do anything and she'd still be beautiful to him. He wonders if she knows that.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

Beca shuts her eyes, Chloe's twisted face of pain still etched behind her eyelids. Jesse can see she isn't ready so does the right thing and moves on. Chloe had hurt her bad. Her feels a pit of protective angst well in his belly, but quickly calms it. It was Chloe, Chloe would never intentionally hurt his fianceé. Never in one million years. She'd always been good to them as a couple besides. There was no need for him to escalate this and make it worse.

“Okay. Well is there anything you want me to do?”

“I want to go home.” Her voice wavers. She sounds so childlike and vulnerable and its so alien to Jesse he doesn’t immediately know how to respond. "With you."

He nods and brings her into a one armed hug, gently kissing the top of her forehead. The added comment made him feel all mushy. He was glad they still had that sort of effect on each-other. Besides, as if he would let her go back without him after this. The state she was in? Jesse would be sticking to her like glue all evening until the tiny DJ felt 100% again.

“Okay. I’ll call everything off for today and meet you back at house okay. I’m getting us some of those nice burritos we had the other night. No sour cream extra lentils.”

Her figure is so small in his arms and he still finds it incredible. It was cute at first and he usually loves holding her. He hated when he had to hold her like this though. The few times he had held her like this were some of the most heart breaking of his life. Jesse hears a sniff.

“You’re the best.” She mumbles into his shoulder. He even dealt with and remembered her controversial dislike of sour-cream. Beca hugs him tighter.

“Only for you.” Is his response.

\----

Half a day later, after a luke warm shower, movie, and a belly busting burrito, they’re safely snuggled in their bed. Jesse is giving her that knowing look and she knows that now they have to actually talk about her problems. But with him that’s never really been an issue. Jesse was always an easy confident. Chloe was too actually, though she never really had to coax it from Beca because all their DMC’s started with gossip. It was a good technique.

“So we gonna talk about it?” Jesse says. Beca sighs. Running an exhausted hand through her hair. Where did she even start with this? Beca barely understood the significance of all that had happened earlier herself.

“Chloe and I got into this huge fight, and I really fucked up, I reacted really badly to something she said and I don’t think she’s coming next week.” She states.

Jesse takes a second to seemingly contemplate that answer. Beca knows it's vague, she knows he knows she's deliberately being so. She hopes he avoids probing into it however, is sort of relying on it actually. That was one of the things she had always liked about their relationship, Jesse knew when to back off and give her some space.

“Maybe I can get her to come?”

“No!” Beca yells almost instantly. Too fast to not be suspicious. He can’t know though, right? There’s no way. For a moment he is understandably stunned.

“Not that I'm offended you won't tell me what this fight was about-" (He is, but he'd never admit it. Plus he gets that Beca likes her privacy.) "But Beca I get it. If I fought with Benji like this, I’d want to sort it before out big day too.”

Beca huffs, and it's her everything is too much huff. These always happened right before she solved her battles. Beca always did. His girl was pretty amazing like that.

“I’m worried that someone’s going to get hurt.” She admits ruefully.

“Emotionally or?”

“Emotionally! Oh god no, not physically. No don’t worry, physicality is more of an Amy deal. ...I think.”

Maybe an Aubrey thing? She’s not sure. Jesse hands her a tissue. It lands in or rather on the overstuffed bin a moment later. Beca grimaces at the microbial Everest that had formed in their room in the last half hour. She would not want to be the cleaning team. Jesse's comfortingly rubbing circles on her shoulder. He's deep in thought and frowning like some important Greek philosopher. He speaks.

“No matter how badly you both hurt each-other Beca, it will be alright. We can all heal with a bit of effort, space and time. And luckily for the both of you, you have some wonderful people to help speed that up, so it's made all the easier!"

He squeeze's her lightly, and is being all dumb and cheesy and sarcastic. That quote was almost so fake-deep it could have easily come from one of his precious films. It's a clever method of distraction. Get her lightly annoyed at him to get her out of this spiral of sadness she had created. 

"Most the time." She sighs.

"With you and Chloe I have no doubt I'm correct. Beca you’ll sort this okay? You always do.”

He gives her a light peck on the cheek. It's perfect. 

“Ugh you’re so great.” She replies disgusted, blowing her nose hard on another tissue.

“The greatest.” He winks.

She wacks him hard.

“Maybe not that great.”

He laughs in response and buries himself beneath their covers.

“Goodnight Beca.”

“Night weirdo.” She answers smiling, Jesse taps out the light and they're plunged into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay with me folks, we've had our Jeca now get ready for the Bechloe. Oh it's coming. BRACE YOURSELVES.


	3. Sorry

##  Sorry

### Chapter 3

  

Beca hurried down the poorly illuminated street, her coat wrapped around her tightly to help block out the cold. She knew she shouldn't be out here this late, especially not alone, and definitely not two days before her wedding, but she had to find Chloe; and she couldn’t exactly drive with the system being so different (Australians drive on the left? who's idea was that anyway?) Speaking of which it was also a stupid idea to have the wedding in Australia, but too late now...

She made her way down the street she knew lead to Chloe’s and the crew’s luxury guest house, and stopped outside the white door. Number 267. Wallaby Way. This was the place. Nervously, she looked across the way to see if Amy was awake and snooping. The last thing she needed was the loud Australian’s intervention-slash-logic to talk her out of this. But fortunately (and a little surprisingly), all of the lights in Amy’s private house were off. Beca still had no idea how the blonde’s family had come into so much money even after five years of knowing her, and she hadn’t asked after the third round of questioning. Amy’s constant reluctance to tell her triggering her to think the whole thing was definitely shady. Stacie figured it was mafia related, Bumper was just as secretive, whilst the Bella's as a whole on the other hand were undecided. The conspiracy theories grew increasingly wild with each discussion they had. Did they even have Australian mob families? She breathed an exhausted sigh.

“What the fuck am I doing?” She whispered to the silent night air. It was three o’clock in the fucking morning and Beca wanted to sleep so SO bad and go back to her bed because jeez was it freezing out here and fuck acting like some sort of spy, small awkward DJ’s weren’t built for that sort of shit-

Breathe Mitchell. Not the sort of attitude you want to greet Chloe with now is it?

A longer, some how more done sigh escaped her. Beca never ceased to surprised herself with her negativity. In a way it was sort of iconic.

Turning to face Chloe's door she hesitated- wondering if she was making the right decision. But it was Chloe right? So of course she was. This was the right thing to do? Beca swallowed nervously. Then smacked her hand very hard on Chloe’s door. As loud as she possibly could she might add to try and wake her because Chloe was a notoriously deep sleeper. And also y’know because this was kinda sorta undeniably urgent. She felt her arms fold across her chest. Did she mention she was freezing? After a few moments of silence Beca heard the shuffling of feet on the other side and listened to the satisfying click of the door lock being unlatched.

_Not Aubrey- Not Aubrey- Not Aubrey-_

The door opened to reveal not Aubrey, but an exhausted looking ginger. Chloe’s night clothes were rumpled, her hair was a mess and her mascara had run in black streams down her cheeks. Both her hands clung too hard to the door frame she was leaning against, white knuckles showing even in the dark. she seemed so afraid to open it fully and that made Beca's heart ache. But ignoring that all the best comparison Beca could think of was that Chloe looked like some new age British punk rocker. she looked like Beca rather ironically, but Beca was pretty sure that was not the look she was going for.

“Chloe.”

She still couldn’t help but say happily, it was supposed to be humble, but Beca was surprised by just how much the taller girl’s presence made her feel better. Beca was SO glad it was her who had opened up, Aubrey was a hag sober after all- Her attention shifted back to Chloe when she noticed her shifting awkwardly on the spot. She’d been crying.  
Obviously she'd been crying.

Chloe seemed to be looking anywhere but at her.

"Chloe-" She repeated. This time softer.

And the red head looked at her, her gaze unwelcoming, shifting uncomfortably on the spot. No doubt she was unhappy to have a visitor this early, especially Beca. They hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms after all. She looked exhausted, and clearly hadn’t sleeping, in the state she was Beca doubted any amount of noise could wake her if she were.

“Beca.” Chloe replied flatly and started to shut the door. She was not in the mood to talk to her. She would maybe some other time. Perhaps when they were both in hell. Why should she even talk to her ever again? What was the point anymore? It was just embarrassing to talk to her now. And every Bella would know by tomorrow what had happened. God, why was Chloe still even here? Beca was getting married. She was leaving her. She shut her eyes and begged her throat not to close up again. Don't cry in front of her. Don't give her the satisfaction.

So far it was just luck that her sobbing had been quiet enough not to wake the rest of the house. She didn’t want any of the girls to see her like this. Not Aubrey (though yeah, she knew what had happened) not Beca. Especially not her ex-best friend slash the person she’d confessed her love too. AKA the person standing right in front of her. Right now. AKA the person who’d rejected her affections. AKA the person she’d stupidly thought would change and dump Jesse in a heartbeat for her.  
…Chloe was an idiot.

She continued to shut the door.

“Wait!” Beca panicked shoving against the door and planting her foot between it.

“Go away.” Chloe ordered angrily and Beca began to notice the slight slur in her voice.

“Are you drunk?” Beca asked genuinely surprised. She had not expected Chloe to be the drink-your-problems-away type person. Well, actually, considering how much of a fan Beale had been of the drink at parties and clubs, Beca really should have expected it. Hell she’d have done the same. The cutie across from her looked down guiltily, knowing she had been rumbled.

“...you’re getting married.” Chloe repeated out loud. The anger gone, sadness in its place. It was a heart breaking attempt at a 'no, leave me alone' but Beca saw right through it. Fed up with trying to negotiate with her, and taking no excuses, Beca used her strength to barge open the door. Let’s face it they both knew that she would win this. Angry small person strength trumps nerdy drunk ginger. Even if the nerdy ginger is the one with all the gains from yogalaties. Beca marched through to the kitchen. Far enough into Chloe’s house that Chloe could not bundle her out again. Not that she could in her state anyway. How drunk was she? Beca scoured the kitchen for the source of her friend’s woes and sure enough on the kitchen island, she spotted an empty bottle of red, along with a tissue box with multiple used tissues surrounding it. Her heart broke a little bit at the sight. Chloe was hurting. Beca hadn’t seen her like this since they’d watched the Imitation Game together.

“Beca, get out of my house!” Chloe grumbled stumbling towards her and slamming the front door shut. It hurt even to look at her. She’d been stupid to think that she could just barge her way into Beca’s love life. Hell, she’d been trying forever to hint how she liked her and the adorable brunette hadn’t showed the fainted signs of being interested had she? STUPID. God the only reason they’d even conversed before was because Chloe had entered her shower NAKED. Hadn’t that made her feelings blatantly obvious!?! Chloe thought it had. So did Tom later that day. They’d broken up a couple of months later when he found out she loved her. Even air head hunky jocks aren’t complete morons all the time. First time senior her was such a loser.

“Go, Beca!” Chloe cried out angrily, continuing to tilt sideways, managing to knock a couple of apples and the fruit bowl onto the floor. She managed to balance herself again the red wall, but could only watch as the china fruit bowl smashed instantly as it hit the ground and as it broke her anger left her, exchanged for a hollowed out feeling of numbness. This was how she really felt. Drunk or not. She watched the steady rise and fall of her chest. Her black sweater stained even darker in areas by her tears. In truth Chloe Beale had never felt more empty. Not even when her Maw maw died. And she knew Beca saw it. Now she did at least. So Chloe just waited for her to say something, even though she knew she wouldn’t. So for a moment time actually seemed to stop. Actually it must have been more than a moment. Moments then.

Beca didn’t say anything.

She was never going too.

…Chloe couldn’t do this anymore.

“You’re getting married.” She repeated rawly. Slamming a hand into the wall beside her, as a new wave of emotional pain rocked through her soul.

Because this was it want it? She was completely broken. Broken into tiny weeny shards of super sharp glass, sharp enough to rip the fingers of anyone stupid enough to try and pick them up. For pitches sake- her last pathetic line of defence had been stripped away by something as petty as a pretty china bowl. Alcohol and being depressed and crying the whole evening could do that to a person she sniffed. It could wear you away to nothing. She ran a shaking hand through her scraggly hair.

God, she felt lost.

She felt so freaking lost-

Beca was getting married.

The thought still sent bile to her mouth every time.

And she was going to be all fucking alone because then Aubrey was going to find someone. Then so would Stacie and Jess. The legacy had already found someone for pete’s sake. God that girl moved fast. And Amy had Bumper…

It just didn’t make any sense that she could break anymore. There was no point in even doing this. Fuck Beca was the one- she’d always been the one. Chloe had known the moment she’d walked up to them and opened her wonderfully sarcastic mouth. Hell, why shouldn’t be the one to smash up her heart? Because it was all for her. And Chloe was broken now. And what use is a thing when it’s broken?

Just go. Chloe mentally thought. At least she thought she did, but she actually said it aloud as Beca would later tell her. Leave me alone. I’ve embarrassed myself enough already. She had no idea how she even made it to the front door to be honest, because (to use Aubrey’s language) coming back was a pitch. Her feet just weren’t responding correctly and what exactly had happened to her balance? She knew she knew the answer to that somewhere… she was very drunk. She only made it a couple more steps forward before reaching out to the wall for support again; and this was only to find out that her own body was too heavy for her. Drunk her used to find stuff like this amusing one time. There was a great incident involving a pool if she remembered. Chloe managed to slide herself down the wall to rest beside it. Then she shut her eyes and lent against it, praying that when she opened them it would be morning and Beca would be gone. Maybe Aubrey would make her some pancakes. If she got lucky maybe this would even turn out to be a dream. She hoped it was, she was so tired…

Beca had watched the whole thing with a mixture of sadness and pity. The other woman’s fight to walk barely 10 metres, the destruction of the fruit bowl, the giving in and lying down. It really hurt to see her like this. It fucking hurt extremely knowing she was the cause of it, and it even hurt to notice how cute Chloe looked with her eyes closed. Even like this. Well she meant- well she knew before but-never mind. They weren't going to get that apology in tonight. Beca looked at her and then decided on what to do, after all she couldn’t let her just lie there. This was her guest house and she had a bed, and Beca was paying for this so there really was no need for her to sleep like a hobo. So she knelt down in front of her before slowly wrapping one of Chloe’s long slender arms around her shoulder. This would be so much easier if she were taller. She grunted, tucking her right arm beneath Chloe’s waist for support and with her other arm scooped up the ginger by the knees, gently lifting her up.

Chloe’s eyes fluttered open to wonder why it was that her sleep had been interrupted. Why couldn’t she just be left in peace? She looked up grouchily only to see Beca’s face staring down at her, her striking dark eyes showing nothing but affection and concern. Chloe’s bitterness at her friend died at that point, and that undying hope began to swell in her chest. Again. She had no energy left to argue (what was the point?) and she felt her own guilt come into play for treating Beca so badly. She hadn't done anything wrong. Not really. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t love her back. And could Chloe really deal with not having her in her life? She wasn't ready to let her go. Her pride had gotten the better of her earlier and the yelling was unnecessary. She was so drunk…

“So wait are we married now?” Chloe remarked tiredly, trying to signal for a truce between them. Chloe Mitchell she drunkenly thought with a snort. Chloe Mitchell-Beale. God that sounded so good.

“Yeah it was one heck of a wedding, we had a friend crash through the open doors and declare their undying love for me and y’know what made it worse? She was in a better dress than the one I was wearing!” Beca replied and Chloe laughed a little tipsily in her arms.

“I didn’t do that!”

“No.” Beca smiled. “But you totally would.”

She would.

She would and she was forgiven.

Beca had forgiven her.

She totally would have done.

Would she?

She forgave Beca too.

Wait, what was she mad about? She sighed content and buried her head in her friends neck, too tired to think or really care how awkward this would be if she were sober. Right now it felt right. Besides, Beca was comfortable.

Beca waited as Chloe made herself comfortable in her arms and observed as she moved her own free arm around her neck for support. The other woman was lighter than she thought she would be, and her small figure made her easy to carry, but admittedly she wasn’t sure how long she could keep this up. Her legs were already a little shaky. This on the other hand felt weirdly natural, just holding her there in her arms. Beca did not know quite what to make of it. She shouldn’t be thinking about it in any case. So trying not to think about it too much, she took Chloe through to the master bedroom. Ready to place her on her own bed.

Gently she lay her down, not wanting to disturb her. Then she noted how she had placed her on top of the duvet and mentally cursed. Well that was stupid. Beca couldn’t move her so she decided on finding a blanket instead. Because in reality moving Chlo like ten feet had near killed her. The relief when she’d put her down was unexpected, god damn was she unfit. One year. One year not doing cardio and this happened. She thought she saw a blanket on the couch earlier which looked good enough to put over her. It was made from robust wool was stitched in a tartan pattern which she wasn’t quite sure fitted the tropical theme Australia had going, but still tip-toeing out she went to collect it, and silently made her way back in minutes later. She unfolded the blanket and draped it over Chloe’s still figure. Then she moved to bed’s other side, slipped of her boots and moved under the covers. She wanted to stay close to her tonight. Just in case she needed anything. Beca knew she would in the morning at least. The hang-over was going to be a mean one.

Chloe shifted to face her and Beca froze wondering if she’d stepped across some mark by being in her bed. Like it was fine before, it had been super comfortable- because like she hadn’t known- Chloe hadn’t told her she- it was just a friend thing-

“Is this a sleepover, or is it your way of saying you’re attracted to me?” Chloe mumbled happily, eyes closed.

“What?” Beca replied slightly flustered, having lost where they were in conversation. That certainly escalated quickly. This was a mistake she knew it-

“Relax Mitchell you’re perfect.” Chloe answered yawning at the end. Cutting off Beca’s train of thought.

“How did you know what I was-”

“Because I know you.” Chloe mumbled simply. “…I’m sorry Beca. I’m a fuck up. I ruined your wedding.”

“No! No you didn’t! You could never-“ Beca fumbled, running a stressed hand through her hair. Which by the way she was fairly certain she was losing at this point. “Chlo you’re one of the best things to ever happen to me. When I met you I was in a dark place, and I thought I could be happy there. But you showed me I could matter to people. I know it’s kinda lame but you’re my hero. Not even my dad believed in me, but you kinda did.”

“Mnnnnnnngh…” came a sigh and Beca had no idea if Chloe had actually heard or was even listening to begin with.

“I love you loser.” Beca whispered quietly, but Chloe was already fast asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't already noticed, the lovely chapter titles are a playlist WHAT? No that was pretty obvious tbh I'll be quiet. Also if you wanna talk bechloe with me @ramencff on tumblr I'm all about that gay shit. Good stuff. Anyway carry on:


	4. Oh Shit

##  Oh Shit

### Chapter 4

 

Beca didn’t know why but she was cold. Freezing, actually. She shivered and pulled the duvet that was over her closer, wanting to close any gap that air could pass through. Air was bad, except when you breathed it. Breathing was good, but air was cold. Her eyelids were sealed firmly shut by sleep and her mind was still clouded with drowsiness, so she didn’t bother to open them. Instead she used touch to navigate the area around her, searching for anything she could use for warmth. She braced herself for the cold that her arm would surely feel when it creeped out from the warmth of the duvet and was surprised to come across the lump in bed beside her. A warm lump. Beca felt it over. Whatever it was, it was wrapped up in a blanket which for some reason she was not under herself. She was too tired to question why that was and instead she opted just to hug this lump instead, hoping it would radiate some heat onto her. Maybe Steve had crawled up onto her bed or something. (Beca was too tired to register that that was impossible because a) the tortoise was cold-blooded and b) well, because he was a tortoise.) She snuggled up to it wrapping an arm over it and pressing herself as close to it as she could. Beca was too tired to get up. Screw that. Why did Amy think a giant tortoise was a good idea as a wedding gift?The shipping cost back home was going to be massive. 

Then, the lump shifted to Beca’s complete alarm. Her eyes snapped open in panic only to see that the bulge was actually the outline of a person. Why was a person in her bed? Jesse was away. Frantically she tried to figure out what the hell had happened the night before, and then it all came back. Beca had come round to apologise, she’d fallen asleep in Chloe’s bed not hers, it was probably just her. She let out a breath she did not know she had been holding in. Thank god.

…Wait a moment… That meant she had her arm around Chloe’s waist. Not a bad thing but-

Beca froze at the revelation. Not a good thing. Not when she was getting married in like two days and when Chloe had just fucking told her that she loved her and Beca had rejected that. Don’t move! Her still sleepy mind panicked. DO NOT MOVE. Don’t wake her up! Beca listened to her mind and lay awkwardly still, waiting for Chloe to fall back into a deep slumber. Right now she didn’t really have a better plan. Chlo’s figure then rolled over, and her companion’s peaceful face came to a rest centimetres from her own. She was so close Beca could feel her breath gently ticking her face. She smiled to herself and took the opportunity to look at the face that these days was normally etched with sadness. It was now perfectly at peace, making her look years younger than she did when she was awake; and her jaw was so close to hanging open that Beca had to stop herself laughing as the image of the ginger drooling came into her mind. It was almost comical, and yet Chloe looked so beautiful like that, so care free and happy. Beca wished she looked like that when she was awake again. She used to look like that all the time when they’d met. She frowned. Over time, since the presidency performance actually, she’d seen it slowly fade. Of course it was Chloe, she never stopped smiling, but at some point it had stopped being real. Beca saw it. Around her anyway.

Since they'd left barden and the world of accapella, Beca was worried Chloe would never be happy again, was so frustrated because Chloe didn’t seem to care about anyone anymore, she’d become so distant. She stopped doing things with her outside the group, they rarely met up, never talked about other things… It was all business. Beca didn’t know that love was the reason for it. How could she have done? She was so focused on her career at the time… because music was hers. She thought it was Chloe’s too. She wanted her to support her but Chloe just wasn’t and didn’t… because in part Beca didn’t let her yes, but Chloe wasn’t interested in any future not even her own and it hurt for while. It really caused a rift between them. It was hard for Beca to keep up with Chloe now she was assistant producing, and hard for Chloe to meet with Beca because she was switching between jobs so fast. Beca didnt even know what she did for a living anymore. But Jesse, he was always there and- She stopped herself. He loved her, but Beca would trade what they had in an instant if it meant old Chloe came back. Chloe was responsible for everything she now held dear. Beca would do anything to give the older woman some stability.

  
Then, her attention was drawn to the taller woman’s lips that in the dark still looked soft. They were turned up in a slight smile that made the DJ want to smile herself. At that point she desperately wanted to know what Chloe was dreaming about. Then maybe Beca could find it for her. Pay her back for everything. Because she was there when Beca needed help with mixes, and for post hang overs, and for dance lessons, and those sad days where she just felt like curling up in a ball and hugging someone in her bed and occasionally for joint shower offers. She smiled at that. All that sort of stuff.

Her eyes trailed downward and attention re-focused back on her arm. She really should move away. She’d spent enough time there. Gently she lifted it up and started to shuffle back, careful to make as little movement as possible. But just as she started Chloe shifted and unconsciously tucked her own arm round the small of Beca’s back. Beca froze again, not knowing quite what to do. Part of her wanted to stay there but she knew she couldn’t. It would be weird and awkward for them both if Chlo chose now to awake. Reluctantly she tried to move back again but Chloe’s arm seemed to sense the movement and gently pulled her closer, encouraging Beca to huddle against her.

“Beca.” She heard the ginger murmur beneath her breath.

At this the DJ finally did smile. A warm tingle had started in her stomach and she gave in. Why the heck not? She was cold after all. Not joking it was like a Russian winter in this house and Chloe was practically a hot water bottle. Something told her that it was more than that but she chose to ignore it, instead looking one last time at her face before settling into the gap by her neck. She gave a goofy grin. Chloe was warm.

\----

 

Chloe slept solidly for the night, considering how tired and hung over she was the sound of one hundred kangaroos rampaging down the dust roads of Australia probably couldn’t have woken her up, yet alone Beca. So when she woke up fairly late the next morning in her bedroom she was surprised to feel that her feet were under something rather scratchy, and that something soft was tickling her chin. The contrast was somewhat confusing. Despite her eyes protests she forced them open and blinked a couple of times; her still groggy mind curious to see what it was she was clutching. Her brain was still in its loading stage and her throat felt oddly raw; it was then she felt the coffee cravings kick in. She should probably get up and make a cup, caffeinated of course not that sappy decaff Aubrey kept trying to inflict on her and that Beca insisted she refuse so of course she did. As she tried to move she felt what she was holding shift against her.

Chloe froze.

_Beca._

Surely enough as if to confirm her fears, the petite figure of the DJ released a tired groan. Chloe’s heart had pretty much stopped beating she was so still. Go to sleep. She mentally begged. And compliantly the brunette released a contented sigh and relaxed. Apparently happy to go back to wherever dream world it was she had come from. God how the hell had they ended up like this!?! She must’ve sleep hugged. Was that a thing? It was now. Her face burnt with embarrassment. That would’ve been awkward if Beca was concious, still could be if she didn’t find a way out of this.

Gently she lifted her arm up from on top of Beca’s waist and began to roll sideways off the bed, not really knowing any other way to get up that wouldn’t disturb Beca’s position and potentially wake her. Unfortunately however she had underestimated just how close she was to the edge of the king size, not knowing that the petite punk rocker had pushed her over somewhat in the passing night; and she fell with a loud THUD onto the floor. Bashing her elbow in the process.

“Shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoooort one lads but im going back to uni lads, so I'm having less and less time I'm afraid. I'll write when I can. I hope you like Steve.


	5. Kiss You

##  Kiss You

### Chapter 5

 

"Shit.”

Chloe cussed under her breath, wondering if that had been enough to wake her friend (and also because her elbow throbbed like hell. And her head hurt!?! Like what the hell?) Gently she made an effort to peer over the top, silently hoping she wouldn’t come face to face with a slightly irritated pair of blue eyes. She breathed out in relief when she saw that they were still closed. Thank god she didn’t have to explain that one. Alright Beale up and at ‘em. Time to make coffee- the memories of last night came flooding back in a heart beat. Oh no.

\----

Her boobs hurt. A Lot. In that moment Beca knew she’d made the dumb mistake of rolling onto her front at some point in the morning and her arms had ‘splurged’ on either side of her. Was that the correct term? Whatever they were far apart. Beca and her mother had dubbed this position ‘the starfish’ when she’d been nine or so. It was a good memory of her mom. She didn’t have a lot of them later on.

She felt around a little. The bed was empty, Chloe was gone, so her eyes opened. Instantly she regretted it. White light poured in from the open blinded window and reflected rather harshly of the cheap white wash walls. Sorry ‘chic’ walls. Because y’know white never went out of style. She didn’t swear like she would normally in the situation. Instead opting to swing her legs out of bed and stand up faster that she ever thought she could. Teen her certainly would’ve been amazed. Grabbing her phone she shot Jesse a quick text about what was happening.

**Hey, still trying to resolve the Chloe thing, should be back in a couple of hours, stayed at hers overnight x**

With that she plopped it down and moved out into the hallway, hoping to find the ginger in the kitchen after registering that someone was cooking something delicious. She followed her nose down the way and sure enough the subject of her investigation was there working the stove. Beca couldn’t help but smile.

“Hey.” She called out. Chloe turned her her head and managed a tight grin.

“Hey. Do you want some coffee?”

“Sure.” Beca nodded curtly, trying to lessen how awkward things were getting already.

“I’m making pancakes too, at least I’m trying, they’re never as good as Aubrey’s but she teaching me and I think I’m getting better but-”

Beca interrupts her before she can continue. Chloe Beale mid rant is a difficult thing to stop once it gets going.

“Can we talk?”

Chloe halted.

“What about.”

“-About everything. We need to get everything out in the open.”

Beca glances at the tortoise making its way through the kitchen nonchalantly. How in hell were they going to get that through customs, christ.

“I thought I already did.”

Not again. Not a repeat of last night. Beca’s thighs still hurt like hell from carrying her for goodness sake.

“Please Chlo - I don’t want a fight. Not today.”

“You’re right. Neither do I.” Chloe sighs tiredly. Taking the pan off the stove. “Beca, I’m sorry about last night.”

“I’m sorry too.”

Chloe nods silently, not really knowing where Beca wants them to go from here and too scared to lead the conversation herself. Boldly the brunette speaks up, shifting so she’s possibly a centimetre taller than before. Chloe has to stifle a smile.

“But I also need to know that you’ll come to my wedding.” Beca states.

The smile fades.

“Beca you know I can’t.”

“You’re my maid of honour!”

She sounds so frustrated and disappointed that Chloe wants to change her mind a little, and this just ends up frustrating her because she can’t-

“Beca-”

They haven’t even had breakfast yet dammit.

“Chloe please you’re my best friend you can’t not be there it’d be wrong.”

“But I don’t know if I can Becs.”

She remarks and Beca can hear the sheer amount of pain in that one sentence. She knows she’s hurting her she does. But she’s being hurt here too so she replies back with just as much emotion, just as much force, because dammit this is affecting her too and she’s had enough pretending it doesn’t matter as much to her because it fucking does.

“Chloe please please do this for me. This is a huge amazing thing! It’s supposed to be a one time thing! You know those don’t happen often in fact they only happen once, that’s why they’re called one time things okay- and you’re family. You’re more important than my family. My dad could not turn up but I need to know that you’d still be there. Like you always have been since I started university. We’ve been through a rough patch but that’s fine- it has to be because I _need_ you.”

Chloe can feel her throat closing up, and the tears begin to pool in her eyes. She looks away and back to the pancake cooking in the pan swirling the mix round as a distraction. Even though Aubrey told her specifically that was not what she should do.

“I’ve been without you before.” Beca continues, but Chloe still can’t look her in the eye. She knows she’s talking about worlds. It was the exact same feeling for her. They’d never been so far apart. So Beca moves toward her to stand by her side at the stove.

“And it was the worst experience I’ve ever had to go through. Chloe listen to me. Please. I’ve- never had a friend as great as you. And I’m fairly certain I never will again in my life. You’re perfect. And you chose me. And I can’t thank you enough times or compose enough songs or mixes to explain that. Just please- don’t leave me.”

Her hand grasps onto Chloe’s arm as the ginger tries to move away, but she’s not sure whether it’s to stop her leaving or to comfort herself.

“…I’m not good at this crap. But I need you to be there.”

Beca’s hand is burning a hole into her arm where it touches her and Chloe can feel her gaze burning into the back of her head. There's pain to those words, bigger than their situation. Chloe wants to ask about it but doesn't. Can't allow herself too anymore.

“I can’t.” Chloe whispers and Beca’s hand moves away. The burning there changing into an icy cold prickling. Almost instantly

Chloe wants her to put it back.

“That’s not fair.” Beca says from behind her. Almost angrily. And her sadness changes to disbelief, Chloe’s heart hardens and she whips around.

“What do you mean that isn’t fair!?!” She coldly answers.

“Chloe-”

“I CAN’T.” Chloe stops her, now near yelling in anger. This wasn’t her being difficult for once. This time it was different.

“Beca, I can’t okay? Do you know what it’s like to be around someone you love and have them love someone else, kiss someone else, right in front of you! For them to be happy without you? Even though you know you could make them one hundred times more happy than they’ve ever been with the total douche bag they’re with at the moment? But you don’t say anything because they’re happy. And then you fool yourself thinking that their happiness is enough to make you happy. I mean they’re the only one who really fucking matters right? They’re the one who you’d do anything for. Who you have done anything for yet they still haven’t seen fucking why and it's frustrating. And it’s because you love them Beca- you love them so SO much it physically hurts when they enter a room, your heart just temporarily stops when it sees them. And it’s then you know you can’t stop loving them because no one else has had that effect on you. And because when you first met them a dormant part of you came alive that until that point you didn’t know could possibly feel that good. And that hurts even more because when they go you know that part of you is going to die, and you’re going to be left empty. Because that part of you becomes the best part of you, and it'll just be gone.”

Beca’s just stunned into silence waiting for her to finish. Her hands still on the table top that Chloe can see. The red head isn't sure how else to explain it, or where to go from here, so, she decides to just wrap it up. It's alllll coming out anyway. It's all gone to shit over here. Chloe can feel her arms physically shaking from the pressure. She just has to hold it together a bit longer.

“So Beca." She swallows rawly, standing as composed as she can muster. "That’s why I can’t come to your wedding. Part of me is going to die today.”

She expects a reaction, but there isn’t one so she continues. Everything was just too complicated. Nothing could ever be simple with Beca. She was a conundrum and Chloe fucking loved it. She fucking hated that she did.

“…I’m sorry you don’t understand.” She finishes, turning off the stove to head back to her room in defeat. She's done today. With all of this.

“But I do.”

That’s enough to make Chloe look back. She swears to god that if Beca makes just one lousy insensitive comment about how much she loves Jesse she's going to physically hurt her. The Jesse punch is one she's been holding in a helluva long time. She shuts the DJ down before she can open her mouth again.

“No, you don’t Beca. You get your happy ending. But not all of us do okay? Not all of us are you.”

Chloe tries to explain. Her turn to run a hand through her hair. How can the lovable idiot not see or hear anything she says!? Then, Beca moves her hand up to touch the tip of Chloe’s chin, and Chloe’s too confused and ruffled to look away or stop it. She swallows, feels the same hand trail through her hair and cup her cheek and to her frustration she feels herself leaning into Beca's touch even though what she wants is to tear herself free and run back into her bedroom and sob desperately into her pillow. Because Beca’s just confused and this is going to break her. It's got to be the heat of the moment, but Beca’s touch just stops her thinking completely. Chloe can't stop looking into her eyes.

“I do.” Beca repeats definitely, her solid blue eyes never once wavering from Chloe’s face as she says it. Okay and now Chloe is sure her brain is short circuiting because then she grabs the back of Beca’s head in her hands and kisses her.

It was naked electricity burning across a copper wire.

Like 10,000 fireworks blowing up at once on the fourth of July.

The universe exploding into existence.

It consumed her completely.

For a moment she forgot who she was. That they were different people. In that couple of minutes her existence alone didn’t really seem that important but then her lungs reminded her.

Breaking free for air she gasps. “Beca-” she breathes, trying to understand what for a moment is really happening. But she quickly tosses that thought aside, as Beca pulls her back in and kisses her just as furiously. She feels the brunette's hand slide up her waist, she herself is still absorbed in Beca’s hair, feeling to see if it is actually real if this is actually happening.

“Chloe.” Beca trembles, quickly moving Chloe’s hands from her face onto her ass. Chloe obliges shuffling back toward the island kitchen table, raking her hands up Beca’s back. Beca gasps as she hops onto the surface, grabbing Chloe’s shirt by the lapels, and pulling her forward to reengage where they were moments before. Her legs wrap around Chloe’s waist and Chloe’s hands shake as the ginger struggles to remove Beca’s top. She prays vainly that the brunette doesn't snap out of it just yet and Beca answers by helping her unbutton her own shirt. Chloe grins between exchanged pecks. Not leaving Beca’s lips for more than a second at a time.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN!?!-

Chloe’s logical mind screams at her. She growls at it to shut up as her arm moves up Beca’s thigh. She’d think about consequences later.

“Chloe-”

Beca gasps in pleasure. Chloe never thought her name could sound so good off someone’s lips. Good. She’d been waiting way too long for this. The desperation was making her feral.

“ _CHLOE-”_ Beca tries again for her attention.

“Beca.” She breathes demandingly between neck kisses, voice already husky. Hands faltering at the rim of Beca’s jeans. Looking Beca in the eye and forcing the brunette to answer her if she was really so desperate to finish. She better not be backing out.

But the DJ to her looks like she’s ten and been told she’s going to Disneyland for free.

“Just wanted to say this is exactly how I imagined it.” Beca whispers. Chloe grins. She fucking knew she wasn't imagining their chemistry.

“You outstanding heterosexual.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

Beca grins pulling the ginger closer in her attempt at some dominance here.

"With pleasure." Chloe purrs in response. Dominance Beca thought, was going to be harder to achieve than she imagined. Game on.

Then, another voice enters the picture.

“...Beca?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is it? Who knows? Also the cheesiness will never die. I'm a romantic not a realist.


	6. The Story of Us

##   The Story of Us 

### Chapter 6

 

“Beca?”

They freeze.

Oh fuck.

“Chlo? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

Shit.

“Heeeey Aubrey.” Beca breaks the silence.

“Two days before the wedding? SERIOUSLY?” Chloe had no idea Aubrey could even reach that octave. There was some hidden talent there.

“DON’T SMILE AT ME BEALE.”

“Sorry.” Chloe whimpers. It was unintentional.

Aubrey sighs in exasperation, moving to sit on one of the island stools. Not even flinching at the sight of a topless Beca Mitchell in her kitchen. She’d seen worse. The whole of America had. Moodily she pours herself a glass of water from the jug, and chugs it back like a cowboy with tequila.

“How long has this been…?” She gestures at the two of them, then holds up a hand. “No wait Chloe would’ve told me so not long. ...Yesterday?”

They both ignore her guess.

"Today?"

“You tell her these things that fast?”

Beca stutters amazed. With her Chloe waits at least two days to talk about her sexual exploits. Aubrey interrupts.

“It was today wasn’t it? Well Chloe you always did work quickly. Sex wise I mean. Props to that- But then with Beca it’s taken you five years to admit how you feel which it isn’t really so speedy but-”

Beca cuts her off again.

“Wait you’re not surprised?”

“Surprised? Beca, Chloe’s had a toner for you as big as Kilamanjaro since she saw you in that shower keep up.”

“YOU TOLD HER ABOUT THE SHOWER?”

“I tell her everything, and actually it was before that... in the quad. You didn’t tell Amy?”

“NO.”

Beca cringes. How are they even having this conversation? This wasn’t where it was supposed to go how did-

“Wait are you guys talking about the shower thing?”

_“Stacie?”_

“What? I’m allowed to leave my room.”

She huffs crossing her arms and indignantly slouches in the doorway.

“Nice tits b-t-w.”

Beca blushes and reaches for her top, shoving it hastily back on and doing up the buttons incorrectly.

“WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?”

Cynthia-Rose yells from down the hall, and Beca can feel a part of her dying with each new person to contribute. Stacie wastes no time in hollering back before Beca can stop her.

“BECA AND CHLOE IN THE SHOWER! BACK IN OUR FIRST YEAR!”

“OH THAT!”

Then a little quieter.

“Nice.”

Beca releases a tired sigh. “Oh my god.”

“I thought you guys knew we knew.” Stacie says a little surprised.

“Well now we do.” She rumbles. Of course if one of them knew, all of them knew, that meant Jessica and Ashley and Flo- SHIT and the legacy… Beca couldn’t believe she’d kept that secret hidden from her. After all the work they’d done together… hurtful. Although Emily had balls she hadn’t known she had so, respect. She better have not told her mom though.

“I’m not ashamed.” Chloe contributes snapping Beca out of it.

“Of course you’re not.” Beca says dismissively and instantly regrets it.

Chloe shifts away from her at her words and Beca knows she’s wounded her. Dammit it was going so well and unexpected yes but well and then Aubrey appeared. Now they had to have a deeper, even more meaningful conversation and dammit why did this have to happen? This was going to make making out so much harder- Stop it Beca! Wait how long had Steve been in the room? She's temporarily distracted as the lumbering tortoise shuffles it's way into the dinning room. They were surprisingly quiet creatures. Huh.

“Oh don’t get mad at Chloe Alt girl. I know for a fact she didn’t instigate the display of affection I just saw and she’s not the one getting married! What does this even mean to you Beca, Chloe’s been bottling it up for years-”

Shit. She can see the words snap Chloe out of whatever lusty mood she was in back to hurt Chloe and instinctively she wants to go over and stroke her arm and kiss her forehead and give her hugs. Although honestly right now she's more than a little confused herself about this whole thing. Chloe was saying all those romantic things just then- and then there was last night- and Beca just got swept up in her- it. Dammit. She'd always found Chloe attractive, and the flirting was sexy but platonic? She thought it was, until Chloe had confessed and shit it was Jesse all over again. But gayer. Beca was weirdly cool with that bit. But she figured out she liked kissing girls way back when. She just had no idea Chloe was the same... which lead to this morning's kiss which was... dizzying. Exhilarating actually.

Aubrey had such an unsubtle way of handling things. Sometimes the blonde still managed to piss Beca off. It wasn’t as bad as it had been at nationals but still. Why Chloe was attracted to either of them was a mystery to her.

“Wait, WHAT?” Stacie grins from ear to ear head whizzing between the two of them as if trying to read their sexual body language or something. She probably could do that Beca guessed, but she herself was a little too distracted trying to get the ginger’s attention to care.

“Oh my god it finally happened.” Stacie continued, finally forcing Beca to focus her attention to her. “CYNTHIA WE’RE FINALLY GETTING THAT MONEY FROM AMY!”

Seriously though?

“OH SHIT! Girl give me five to get ready, I wanna she the Aussie’s face of defeat!”

“Amy totally thought it would happen once you were married to Jesse and like, Chloe would just surprise you one day at home and turn you.”

Stacie explains and Beca’s just trying to think of a response that makes sense as a flash of red cuts through the middle of them and out toward the exit. Stupefied, Beca just watches as Chloe slams the front door shut, making the whole timber house judder under her anger.

“Shhhhhhhit.” Beca moans.

“I’m going after her.” Aubrey declares and is on her feet and nearly the door before Beca even gets a say. She pauses and turns to face her before she fully leaves, and gives Beca the meanest glare she’s ever received.

“Mitchell. I don’t know what that was. I don’t really care what the specifics were either. But here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to find her and I’m going to talk to her and make sure she doesn’t completely lose it in the next hour. Then, I’m going to text you, and you’re going to come and sort out your stupidly large heated mess, and if you don’t I’m going to shove you in a net so far up in the sky where no one can possibly hear your wailing, and where your eyeballs will be pecked out by bald eagles. UNDERSTAND.”

“I-”

Beca starts but doesn’t get to finish as Aubrey leaves and the front door get slammed on them all. Again.

\----

“You and Aubrey really need you work on your communication.”

Beca sighs.

“Thanks for that Stace.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheeky bit of humour for you all ;)


	7. You're My Best Friend

 

#  You're My Best Friend

### Chapter 7

 

The flow of the stream is surprisingly loud, and luckily easy to get lost in. The shifting blue reflects the light almost tone for tone in Chloe’s eyes, making that dazzling colour all the more vivid and magical, though the scowl above it contrasts a different feeling. A water boatman lands on the water’s surface, and briefly dissolves Chloe’s view of herself. The frown deepens more in misguided annoyance. Then the thing scoots off. _Yeah you better run._

“Chloe?”

Chloe hears the call from far off, as if she wouldn’t recognise the sound of her best friend’s voice from miles away, though Chloe knew in reality it had to be less than 200 meters away for sure. She doesn’t reply, knowing the Bree will eventually find her no matter what she does and that she kind of wants her too anyhow. This past hour and a bit were necessary, but Chloe didn’t deal well with emotional pain alone, she needed physical hugs and attention. They made pain so much more bearable. She listens to the crackling underbrush but doesn’t make the effort to turn around. The heavy breath of Aubrey gives away the strain the woman put on herself to catch up to her so fast. She feels a pang of guilt settle in her stomach, but lets it go. Afterall, she'd have gone to just as much trouble to find Bree if the situations were reversed without hesitation. Chloe already felt shitty enough with those thoughts not on her plate.

“There you are.” Aubrey sounds relieved. Chloe bets she is. Losing anyone in the outback must be infuriating, especially for neat-and-control-freak Aubrey Ann Posen. Chloe guesses her time managing that camp was good to her though, because Bree sat down on the log next to her no hesitation. She was proud at her friend’s growth these last few years. She just wished hers had been as monumental. The tears start to well up in her again and her vision begins to blur, she chokes on her words but she manages to look Bree in the eyes. The blonde responds in seconds.

“Hey-” Aubrey whispers gently, and pulls her into a sidelong hug. “It’s going to be okay. I’m here, you’re fine, I’ve got you.”

And Chloe just lets it out and sobs for a couple of minutes. Because why not? She thinks of all the times her and Beca shared together, and they come about unwanted. The late-night movies they shared as aca-captains, the snuggling in bed together because Chloe couldn’t always find a one-night stand to cuddle. Beca had been there for that. Before she’d moved in with Jesse of course. This was forgetting the coffee dates with hand touching, the week-long road trip they’d taken when she’d graduated. Everyone else was busy, Chloe had lied. She’d meant to tell Beca how she felt then, but- she was too scared. She should have just remained scared. It was all platonic. She’d just imagined the rest, and the scared part of her had always known it.

“Be proud you told her.” Bree continues. “I know you’re thinking that you regret you ever did but you needed to tell her Chloe. You needed closure. And for what it’s worth there was something there, that was quite the make-out I interrupted. But if Beca can’t see it all she’s an idiot, and I’m sorry.”

Chloe, still silent moves her arms to wrap around Bree’s waist and the blonde briefly squeezes her tightly in reassurance.

“You’re the best Bree.” Chloe says.

“I know. And for what it’s worth this is entirely Mitchell’s fault and if you want me too I will kill her. _Finally_.”

A sudden burst of laughter erupts from the ginger’s mouth and the blonde’s ridiculous desire for undeserved retribution. Day one of knowing the Alt. Girl had such profoundly different effects on them. Like Yin and Yang, her and Aubrey, always. One thought one thing, the other always the polar opposite. Together they were a wonderful balance. They sit like that for a long while. Chloe isn't sure how long it ever is, because neither of them either stop to once check their phones or the time. Eventually, Chloe shakily breathes out.

“What now?” she asks.

“Now, we take in another deep breath and we deal with our problems.” Aubrey answers simply. It's a simple truth. Then again most courses of action which are often the hardest were deceptively simple. Chloe knows this better than anyone.

“ _Oh god_.”

She tries to say it jokingly but only half succeeds.

“I know.” Aubrey replies softly. A hand running softly through Chloe’s hair. The ginger sniffs, then pulls away. Her hands resting again on the rough bark beneath them. She tries not to think of all the potential bugs this thing has inside it. Chloe once read a single oak tree had the potential to hold up to 500 different species on it, and considered if the outback’s foliage could even remotely compare. Things were certainly likely to be deadlier… with that thought she leaps off the trunk. Aubrey smoothly follows. Chloe wipes her eyes with her pyjama sweater, then smiles sweetly at the stupid situation she had just put herself in. Glancing down at the now ruined white bedtime slippers only confirms her theory. Why in heaven's name did she bring those?

“Okay.” She says. Accepting that she can't hide from this problem forever. “Let’s go talk to Beca.”

Aubrey is on it. Within seconds she’s whipped out her phone and is texting someone. Chloe can probably guess who already. They’re there in silence for a short time whilst Chloe let’s Bree work her magic. The blonde shoves the phone back in her pocket.

“Okay the house is empty and all the Bella’s are going on a daytime safari which doesn’t end until four. Beca is willing to meet you there whenever you’re ready. Are you?

Chloe nods.

“Let’s do this.”

\----

Beca registers the bedroom door slamming behind her but doesn’t take much notice. She didn’t know where to go. Chloe left in a hurry and all the Bella’s were just staring at her quietly and she felt her throat and the room start to close up and the hyperventilating started so she just ran back to Chloe’s room and- She shuts her eyes against the building panic and tries to breathe. Her hand leans against the bedroom’s pristine white desk and she forces it to carry her the majority of her body weight. It was her parent’s divorce all over again, the panic attacks, the crippling fear. She whirls round and begins to pace. How the hell did she get into this one? What the hell was she going to tell Jesse? He’d hate her she knew it. Now Chloe hated her too and she did this- she alienated everyone. She caused monumental chaos-

 _ **Breathe.**_ It’s her mother’s voice. That distinct voice she hadn’t heart in so long. Her heart aches. _Mom. Help me._ An echo of her mother's voice answers. _**You can do this. You’re so strong to be coping with this Becca, I’m so proud of you.**_ The last words she spoke in her illness. Battling once again to prevent her heart breaking in two, Beca focuses on her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. She’d beaten her anxiety before and she could do it again. Slowly Mitchell she chides, and her heart rate begins to slow, and the pounding in her ears begins to fade. Relief like waves floods through her. Thank god.

“Beca?” A timid voice calls from outside the doorway, and her heart softens at the devotion in it. Genuine care. What she’d been searching for to fill the heartache from her mom's death is what these girls had given her. They were her family now.

“Hey Cynthia, how’s it going?”

“We’re all fine. We’re good. Listen we made you pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup, and we’re just gonna leave it outside your door okay? There’s this safari coming up, and we think we’re gonna go, give you some room y’know? To sort things out. We all know you like peace for that. But um- I’m a phone call away. We all are so…”

There’s a quick mutter of “Yeahs” that follows Cynthia’s and that brings a smile to her face. These nerds knew her so well. Not so well as Chloe and Amy, who saw through her bullshit pre-tense of lone wolf so would just barge in here no doubt; but they knew well enough to respect her, and willingly did what they thought she would like them too, and that was wonderful in itself.

“Oh, and we’ll be back by four with burgers and fries.”

“And we’re right behind you Cap!” Beca's goofy grin widens at Emily’s added enthusiasm.

“Yeah, we’re behind you no matter what you do Mitchell.” Cynthia adds, she hears a small whack.

“Ow.” Emily whispers.

“She knows that, why wouldn’t she know that.” Cynthia mutters annoyed, Beca can imagine the tutting. She catches herself rolling her eyes in her usual manner, and feels almost like she's ready to deal with everything again. Friends made pain so much lesser. 

“Alright. We’re off Beca, catch you later.”

“Sure. Bye Cynth, bye you guys!”

“Bye Beca!”

The added voices let her know that they all must be outside. She releases a little chuckle. Of course, her suspicions were accurate. On the desk her phones buzzes. She takes a glance and sees that Aubrey has found Chloe, and that this impromptu safari, wasn’t an idea of Cynthia-Rose’s after-all. Figures. The blonde had a knack for interfering. She responds that she’s ready for a meet up. They had a day to resolve this whole thing. A thing that her fiancé still knew jack about. Still he could wait. Just a bit longer. Beca hoped he could anyway. For her sake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry for the prolonged update, was too busy enjoying summer you know? I had three chapters actually already prewritten but I hated them, so this is a re-write. I like it a lot better, the story makes a lot more sense now. I keep thinking I write more than I do, so if you'd like longer chapters let me know, and I'll beef them out some more. I'm always up for self improvement. Thanks as always for your patience.


	8. She's a Lady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beca and Chloe finally stop being drama queens and try to sort their lives out like adults. Because this entire situation is adult, right?

#  She's a Lady

### Chapter 8

Beca raps the sides of her cup of coffee. Damn she was nervous, okay maybe the caffeine was a terrible idea. She takes another sip. But it would be a shame to waste a perfectly good mug now she’d made it. She tries to let the comforting scent of it calm her down instead, not too much success. She wouldn’t be calm until she had solved this whole thing with Chloe and Jesse, and her head swam just thinking about the complexity of it all. Her eyes darted to the front door, just waiting for the lock to turn, and to see a familiar pair of electric blue eyes. Any minute now Aubrey would be back with her.

Chloe’s hand hesitates before it touches the doorknob. She isn’t sure why, it just seems like suddenly such an exposed place. Like someone is watching them.

“Chloe?”

“I’m fine.” She says and presses the handle downward. Unsurprisingly her breath catches when she spots Beca, whose eyes immediately dart down to her twiddling fingers around her mug. It’s kind of a relief that she seems equally uncomfortable.

“Hi.” She starts, staring into her lap.

“Hi.” Chloe answers, confidently striding towards the kitchen island. She was always the first to do anything in their relationship. Something she had accepted a long time ago. Finally, the smaller woman meets her eyes and delicately she takes a seat. She can feel Aubrey sit down beside her but she’s barely registering her if she’s honest. Chloe knows Aubrey will understand it if she blanks her, she was just here as a supporter really.

“You first Beca.” Aubrey says stiffly.

Meekly, Mitchell looks up to face the two of them.

“Are you comfortable with her being here?” Chloe interjects. Beca swallows and nods, hair falling in front of her face by accident. Chloe watches her tuck it back behind her ear. It’ll stay there for what? Another minute at most before it fell in front of her again. It was an endearing character trait.

“Um, if you want her here sure. I can’t exactly deny you that.” Beca says.

 _No you can’t._ Chloe thinks. She guesses Bree is probably thinking the exact same thing, but she doesn’t say it. This talk wasn’t meant to be aggressive, though it would probably turn out to be. Still, Chloe wasn’t eager to edge that side of the conversation onward.

“Well then I’d like if she could stay. For now at least.” Another nod. This conversation couldn’t be slower.

“I’m sorry if I offended you, and if that’s why you ran away.” Beca starts.

Not the apology she was expecting first, but okay.

“Well I’m sorry I ran away, I’m sorry that they all saw that. Saw us.” She answers.

“The fact that people saw is not either of your faults. No need to apologise for it. Chloe that’s not on you.” Aubrey says. “And Beca I think you’re avoiding the much larger apology.”

Chloe holds up a hand to stop here there. Beca had a way of doing things unconventionally, but they both knew what they needed to say to each other she thought. This back talk was just a way of Beca subtly saying to her that actually, she’d rather they were alone. Her body language was so easy to read. Chloe understood. She was beginning to think the same thing.

“Bree, I appreciate the help, but you know I have a ton of clothes that need organizing in my bedroom. It’s just like an explosion of wedding blouses in there you know? So if you want to do some organizing…”

The actual look of horror and indignation on Aubrey’s face just imagining the destruction makes her want to smile. She mimics a volcano erupting to emphasize, and it’s enough to make the blonde actually flinch in discomfort. Underneath this all though, she can see that she reads the lower levels. Beca is trying not to smile just slightly, she can sense it.

“Fine. I’ll go sort it. But just so you know, Chloe Marie Anastasia Beale you’re a total barbarian.” Aubrey slides down from the stool and slinks into the bedroom corridor. Both of them watch her leave, and don’t resume talking until they here Chloe’s room door close.

“Your room is fine, I was in it half an hour ago. There’s no blouses…”

“I know.” Chloe responds quietly.

“Oh.” Beca answers, apparently catching up.

She breathes a deep breath, and Chloe sees her face take on that steely look of determination she had when she talked about deejaying, and Chloe raises a brow in expectation. 

“I really want to kiss you again.” Beca finishes.

Chloe exhales in relief for the both of them. That was a much better confession than an apology. Chloe thinks she's done with hearing those for now.

“You have... no idea how much I want that too.” Chloe laughs.

“Who knew we would have had such great chemistry, right?” Beca laughs back.

How about Chloe from day one? Foresight could be such a bitch of a gift.

“Yeah, it’s kinda crazy…” Chloe purses her lips, cheekily debating whether or not to actually say what she wanted. Flirty her won out. Not really ashamed this time.

“But from what I heard, I was a better kisser than you imagined right?”

Beca groaned and buried her face in her hands. “I totally said that didn’t I?”

“In the heat of the moment.” Chloe winks, Beca blushes and grins.

“I mean I thought it was normal, people dream about having sex with their best friends right? It’s just from hanging about with them so much.”

Chloe snorts.

“Yeah because I bet you dream about sex with Amy allllll the time.”

“GROSS no! Ugh, don’t put that image in my head she’s like… the annoying twin? Platonic spouse? That I never wanted.” Beca says with irritancy, but Chloe happens to know that the Australian meant the world to Beca, and if she were to suddenly depart her side Beca would brood around like a toddler who had their favourite toy taken away. All angry and overdramatic like she was when they first began university. Amy had the ability to make anybody laugh and relax, it was one of the reasons Chloe was highly fond of her. Beca was so difficult to unwind, and if you could succeed in doing just that, then you were definitely special.

“Uh-huh yeah.” Chloe says, not really listening. Beca’s face turns to one of suspicion.

“Of course, that would also mean I’d thought about Aubrey and I-”

The small DJ makes a fake gagging noise and it’s kinda cute, so Chloe pushes it a bit further enjoying watching her squirm.

“I mean there was this one time in our freshman year-”

“No! no. I don’t want to know about any intimate details of Aubrey’s sex life. Like at all. Any more and I’m putting my fingers in my ears and going LALALALA. Plus-” Beca stops herself.

“Plus, what?” Chloe starts to grin when Beca looks at her reluctantly.

“What? Mitchell.”

“Plus, now that you mention it, the idea of you and Aubrey, it kind of makes me jealous.” Beca mumbles. Chloe bursts out laughing. She knew it.

“ _What?_ Becs come on you know there’s nothing there. We’re just friends.”

“That’s what I thought we were and then THIS happened.” She wasn’t wrong.

“What do we do? I mean I know its not your problem technically, and I need to tell Jesse, _I will tell Jesse_.” Beca stops herself mid-ramble as the ginger goes quiet.

“Are you sure?”

“What?”

“I mean… are you sure you want to tell him? Becs if you do, then it might be over with him, like forever. Are you ready for that? Do you want that? I mean we don’t know where this is going. It could be over in like a week.”

“A week?” Chloe almost laughs as Beca squeaks out that remark. It’s comforting to know that this is a genuine thing between them. Makes the feeling of the conversation warmer.

“I’m not saying I would want it to be, but I don’t know. The way you acted earlier sure made it sound like this was temporary. And if we were in a relationship I’d fight for you, I have fought just to be around you every step of the way, but if your heart is not one hundred percent in this? Get married to Jesse, Beca. Don’t fuck up a good thing you have for me.”

Had she fought for her? Had she really? Beca couldn’t help but think it. She hadn’t told her the truth and that seemed like the biggest fight of them all. From Chloe’s perspective she’d fought, maybe, but to Beca, all that stuff Chloe had done for her… she thought it was for the sake a best-friendship. That was the other thing, what Chloe had done for her, what part of it had an ulterior motive and what didn’t? Did that matter? Should it? Didn’t you want your lover to be your best friend? This entire situation was fucked.

“Well, that kind of killed the mood a little.” It comes out more bitterly than Beca intends.

“Yeah.” Chloe answers with just as much cynicism.

…This isn’t going how Beca wants it. Time to cut the crap.

“Go on a date with me.” Beca says.

“What?”

“You heard.”

“Beca, that’s insane.”

Insanity is... rather a light term for this situation, Beca thinks. She shifts in her seat as she tries to come up with the right thing to say.

“You said you’re worried about this being temporary for me, right?”

“I- yes.”

Chloe is- too stunned to say much else at the least. _Talk about curve balls!_

“-and I’m getting married in two days." Beca continues. "So that sort of only leaves this evening to figure this out. I’ll take you on a date, go home, tell Jesse and then by then I should know.”

The idea of finally going on a date, with Beca, made Chloe's head swim and her heart pound. Chloe had always imagined she’d be the one to ask the broody brunette out, not the other way around. Everybody knew it was her who had the charisma, but she guessed they all forgot Beca had balls of steel. She knows she should be turned off by the idea of competition but she’s actually kind of thrilled about the idea. She was stupidly competitive. She could take Swanson. Emotions were weird like that.

“I know it’s weird. I didn’t really think too hard before I said that. I should of thought harder, shouldn’t I? That was kind of a selfish thing to ask.”

“No, it’s perfect. I mean, it IS a stupidly selfish thing to even _suggest_ , but I think it solves both our fears so… yes.”

“Really?” Beca grins. She’s actively grinning. Then remembers she’s never actually asked anyone out before, so that’s actually a first for her. And she was successful! A 100% success rate. It felt good. “Well, great! I’ll come by at six thirty.”

“Two hours and forty minutes to plan a date Mitchell. And it better be a nice one, I’m a classy lady.”

“Says the woman in the grubby outback stained pyjamas and half-assed hair bun, sure. But I’ll text you, yeah? What to wear, where to meet?”

“I’d expect nothing else.”

“Great. Awesome. Cool. I guess I’ll see you then?”

Chloe laughs.

“Remember to breathe Beca!”

“Breathe. Yeah, breathe I’ve gotta remember that.”

Chloe grins and bites her lip, and as Beca walks away she feels her heart soar. **_Breathe._** Okay, yeah. Now she had to remember that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! WOOO! Thanks for all your lovely comments, I appreciate them all, and now actually have an ending in sight for our star crossed lovers. Nice. Stay lovely fellas,
> 
> Ya Britishgal.


	9. Our House

#  Our House

### Chapter 9 

Beca's on her laptop back home. Home being the apartment Beca and Jesse were renting for the week, scrolling through various internet tourist sites in their comfortable apartment armchair. Her feet were up and resting on their futon and Beca was possibly feeling more relaxed than she has been in days. The exposed brick walls and lounge/ kitchen were very Jeca and she approved greatly if she’s honest of her fiancé’s choice for them.

Her mind drifted toward what her and Chloe’s apartment look like. Chloe would never demand it of her but Beca would have to give her head-designer powers. Chloe launched herself into decorating and any form of DIY mode any opportunity that she could. It was probably something to do with that Texan upbringing of hers. The Bella’s house? All Chloe. The only thing Beca got a say in was their office. She’d be happy to just observe the results of that creative mind of hers. Beca imagined it would be colourful home though. In her mind, there was a warm yellow hallway and a green bannistered stair-case. There was a lot of oak and wood. It was also super clean. A bright red couch, and pale blue living room. Beca would of course request a leather armchair. Her request would be granted, but Chloe would throw on a neon pink cushion on it because Beca would secretly totally allow that. Maybe a pizza oven in the kitchen?

“Heya wife-to-be and future Mrs. Swanson!”

Beca is snapped from her reverie by the cheerful voice of Jesse. Who has just now emerged from their bedroom at what time? Wearing only a towel around his waist, hair still stupidly mussed up and wet from the shower he’d just had. What a dope. She feigns shock.

“The man-child emerges from his cave! Finally!”

He feigns being hurt.

“Ouch. I could say the same to you too you know. It’s like you’re suddenly attached to Chloe’s hip again.”

He puts a hand up, inspects it, and then jiggles his pinky in his ear at a bad attempt at clearing it. Beca is mildly disgusted. But mostly unsuprised. They’d seen some things living with each other for the last couple of years. They were veterans with eachother.

“Did you have fun with the boys last night?”

“Maybe a little too much fun. But at least the world isn’t spinning anymore.”

“Well technically-”

“It is.” Jesse sighs. “You’re so literal sometimes. Totally dug it at first for some reason.”

“Well you did propose to me after knowing.”

“I did! My bad. Can’t take it back now.”

Beca swallows nervously and hope he doesn’t see what she’s hiding.

“Anyway whatcha looking at? Anything I can see?”

Jesse passes into the kitchen and start prepping some coffee. Should she tell him it’s 5pm? She should probably tell him. He has to know, though right?

“It’s nothing.” She answers, reflexively half shutting the screen to discourage any further prying. Then she stops. This was wrong. She should tell him. She should tell him right now. Her chest felt heavy, but looking at him it got a little lighter. He still had that effect on her dammit. Shit. Fuck. What was the right pathway here?

People often mistook Beca for an unemotional type. Probably because for the most part, with other people she was. Beca felt deeply but handled it herself more often than not. At first internalizing without any idea how and unhealthily as a teen, but had later learnt post-university how to cope with her feelings in a less destructive manner. Albeit still not so much with conversation with others because, it made her feel a little on edge; But with Amy, Jesse and the Bellas she’d learned to talk a little more. A little of her embarrassment and anxiety faded with time and responses to emotions became more rational and feelings became less explosive, or rather they felt less like that. Less of a burden that simply denying that you’re feeling anything at all. Which was her way of thinking for such a stupid length of time, what a waste. That being said, she was impressed with how non-anxious she felt about this situation. She should probably feel guiltier, more panicked, and yet here she was feeling surprisingly okay. Maybe telling Jesse would really fucking alter that though. Maybe her brain was denying her that panic wrongly.

“Jesse, I need to tell you something.” Beca starts frowning.

“Is it an important something?”

_More important than he could probably comprehend right now._

“Yes.”

“Coooould it possibly wait until I have some clothes on?”

“I’d rather just say it and be done with it.”

“You got me a motorbike! That’s it isn’t it?”

That would be pretty cool.

“No.”

“You’ve been bitten by a radio-active spider and now want to masquerade around LA as Spider-Girl!”

“No, you dork.”

He knew she hadn’t seen the new spider-man movie and that she had no intentions of doing so despite his persistence. Beca whole-heartedly agreed with him that Zendaya was in fact a boss-bitch and was a huge fan of her Instagram, but superhero movies? They were so cheesy and predictable it almost made her want to barf. Could he just be sensible for like one minute? Was one minute of his time not joking seriously that hard? She already knew that answer to that question was a resounding yes. It usually took a half hour of banterous conversation before they even dared talk about anything serious. He continues to try and joke.

“Sure would be a better job than a music-producer. Probably a more realistic life goal even-”

He says it as a joke and light heartedly but for some reason hearing those words is like a punch to her gut.

“Wait you don’t think I’m gonna make it as a music producer?”

He scoffs. “Beca it was a joke.”

“I mean I know it was meant to be, but you basically implied that my dream job is impossible Jess.”

She’s not sure why but she’s pretty intent on this becoming a full blown argument.

“I mean, it’s a pretty competitive world, maybe you’ll make it, maybe you won’t.”  Jesse answers truthfully.

Beca has to resist rolling her eyes. Like she didn’t think about that possibility EVERYDAY of her life. As if she wasn’t going to be crushed if she didn’t make it. She didn’t need more people plugging that negative reality in for her. She found self-belief hard enough.

“Right and your future as Hans Zimmer is guaranteed, when you haven’t even been composing for like a year.”

“Hey I just want to score movies, not be the god himself. Just because I got an actual reliable job-”

“My job at the studio doesn’t count as reliable all of a sudden?” She snaps right back.

“I mean- you’ve been stuck on base editing other people music for three years and there’s no sign of a promotion-”

Jesse wisely stops talking when he sees the frosty look on Beca’s face begin to form. She spots his Adam’s apple gulp in fear, but stays silent. Let him stew for a while. She watches as he tries to backpedal his way out of this. The hand awkwardly goes to the back of his head to grab it and scratch. The fucker worked in a goddamn office. A job entirely unrelated to his dream career. Just because he’d given up on his future, doesn’t mean Beca had. Not after all this time.

“Anyway, what was it you wanted to ask me about?” Jesse continues nervously.

Suddenly she doesn’t feel bad about going out tonight at all. Doesn’t feel bad about what she’d done with Chloe. He didn’t believe in her. He used to humour her, and encourage her- but this? Fuck being condescended on.

“Nothing. I’m just going out again is all.”

“The night before our wedding?”

“We’ve got the rest of our lives, together right?”

She musters a fake smile and a tone that barely hides how annoyed she really is. They haven’t fought like this in forever. He looks wounded but she’s too angry that he’s given up on himself and apparently her dreams to care.

“Wait, who are you going with?” He asks.

_“Chloe.”_

She answers angrily, and marches into their bedroom and slams the door. Immediately starting to search for clothes to wear this evening. Anything was better than staying here after this.

Jesse had come out when she left, then re-appeared when Beca came back with the car, trying to apologise, but she mostly just chose to ignore him. There was more name calling and raising of voices before she told him to just back off, she’d be home tonight. That seemed to comfort him enough to leave her alone but she still wasn’t too convinced. Starting up the engine she tried to shake off any of the anger she had, because feeling angry at your fiancé before a date with someone else was usually a sign things weren’t going to go well. But this had to go well she reasoned, because it was Chloe. Beca sent up a little good luck prayer as she backed out of the driveway and hoped God was listening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to add a Jeca chapter. I truly did not. But it would be poor story telling not too. :/ Anyway date-night coming up next!


	10. Brighter Than The Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of 2 of the Bechloe Date!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The date was getting ridiculously long page wise, so I thought why not a two parter? Stay tuned for more!

#  Brighter Than The Sun

### Chapter 10

Beca impatiently bats the steering wheel of the jeep, trying to keep it cool as she waits for Chloe. After choosing what to wear that evening, she happened to recall what Jessica told her about a date she had planned with Ashley in the city and figured screw it, if it was something those two planned to enjoy, it was totally something Chloe would too. Hopefully they wouldn’t mind that Beca had stolen their date idea too much. With the base plan sorted, she’d organised the rest of the date in under an hour, frantically searching through her laptop and ordering tickets for tonight which if she was honest, she was surprised she could receive at such short notice. It was originally just going to be a dinner, but dinners, she thought, weren’t particularly special; You took someone out to dinner when you were first getting to know them and well, Beca knew Chloe better than she knew the back of her own hand. That was a weird expression really. Who actually _knows_ the back of their hand right? Who bothers to look at the back of their hands unless they’re an artist? Or a dentist… or maybe a carpenter? Deejaying… shit. Okay bad example. Maybe people really DID know the backs of their hands.

Looking impatiently outside again she finally spots Chloe and does a double take. It’s not subtle. Beca can’t naturally DO subtle and Chloe laughs a little as she slowly struts up to the passenger side.

“Hi.” Chloe smiles.

And Beca being socially inept, forgets to reply because she’s too busy staring. The ginger is wearing a simple white tee with low hung gold pendant, her long mane of hair loosely platted down her side. Her lower half consists of slim fit black jeans and brown heeled leather boots. She has a jean jacket with fur trim to finish and Beca nearly faints at how pretty her eyes look. Wow.

Chloe doesn’t fail to notice Becs checking her out. She also doesn’t fail to notice Beca’s little red dress, god damn. A leather jacket too just to toughen it up a little. Beca Mitchell couldn’t be too feminine after-all. She should however wear dresses more often.

“Nice Jeep, we going on an evening safari? Should I have bought a novelty hat?”

“I’m pretty sure there’s one in the back.”

Is all Beca can say, still dumbly staring. Chloe leans back and sure enough, mixed in the back with a bunch of other crap, there’s a hat with dangly corks. Yup. Aussies.

“So I see.”

“No, actually, I was thinking we could go into Melbourne.” Beca continues.

Well that wasn’t on Chloe’s list of date-guesses. Intriguing.

“The big city! Isn’t that like an hour away? What are we going to do for an hour?”

Chloe says.

“I mean, I personally was planning on driving.”

Beca says sardonically. Chloe smirks before she dramatically throws her hand over her heart.

“You’re just _such_ a romantic.”

The sarcasm oozes so obviously from Chloe's words, that it makes Beca sputter a little. Totally threw Beca’s attempt at wit out the window.

“Obviously that’s not all I’ve got planned! But I was thinking, we could just y’know… chat for now. Catch up. Talk about nothing like we used to I guess, ’cause I don’t really know what you’re up to anymore.”

“What no Mitchell mix-tapes to be demoed?”

Chloe is genuinely surprised. Beca rarely went anywhere without music. Especially her own. She used to always let Chloe preview her work as well, which started when they began as co-captains and continued for a time even when they weren’t. It was a special privilege Chloe was rather fond of.

“Nope! I’d rather just have good conversation. I’m all yours.”

As much as Chloe wants to believe that Beca is all that thoughtful she’s somewhat sceptical. She hasn’t seen a set of headphones around Beca for at least the engagement.

“You left your music behind didn’t you.” Chloe flatly says. 

 _“Wedding are so stressful!”_   Beca breaks almost instantly, making Chloe chuckle.

“I’m not surprised. For the last three months you haven’t left Jesse’s side, planning the wedding, running around finding a dress, a cake, a location...” Chloe awkwardly laughs.

“Yeah. I know, I’m sorry. I got wrapped up in my relationship and all of this… chaos.”

Beca seems genuinely saddened by the whole thing; yet another mutual feeling for the both of them, so Chloe just sighs and opens the car door. She slides neatly into the passenger seat and shucks off her jacket. Then buckles her belt and staring at Beca as she slams the door behind her. Chloe makes a conscious effort to shrug off the protective outer shell she could already sense she was building. This was not the time for barriers. Tonight, had to be constructive, or it was useless to the both of them. Though it was getting pretty difficult to ignore her common sense. Why did it seem to love feeling hurt and sad? Or was she getting it confused with anxiety?

“Well I like that idea of just us for once.” She states. “Kinda wish this open jeep had windows though.”

“I may have borrowed it from a member of the outdoor safari staff.”

“I figured.”

The giant yellow writing and logo of the tour group painted on the side had pretty much shown her that detail. That was quick thinking from Beca, Chloe was actually pretty impressed. Then she had a thought. “Beca, can you even drive here?”

Beca opens her mouth then shuts it.

“Do you know what?” She says. “It’s best not to ask.”

“I’m not gonna.” Chloe shrugs her off. “Just don’t kill us.”

“No Romeo and Juliet scenarios, got it.”

The engine starts up with a pleasant rumble and Chloe begins to get excited as they back out onto the Drive. Melbourne! How exciting.

\----

As they roar along the open roads of the outback, it’s pretty hard to hear through the sound of rushing wind, but Chloe feels oddly relaxed as she lets the noise distract her.

“You’re quiet, what’s up?” Beca yells from the driver seat. They’re precisely ten minutes into their drive and not much has been said about anything.

“It’s just- I had a thought!” Chloe says.

“Oh yeah? …Did it hurt?” Chloe rolls her eyes.

Dad jokes. At a time like this Beca Mitchell was making dad jokes. It was just... how did Jesse feel about Beca not being around two days before the wedding? If Chloe were him, she’d be pretty freaked out. Wasn’t there so much more left to organise? “What did you tell Jesse?”

“What did I tell him?”

Chloe nods.

“About tonight!”

“I told him the truth.” Beca answers briskly.

“WHAT!?!”

“No- shit! I meant I told him I was going to go out with you tonight. I mean I was going to tell him about us romantically but then we got into this fight and-” Beca shakes her head. “I didn’t want to tell him like that. That’s not how I want it to go.”

Shit that was close. Beca really needed to clarify things more. Chloe is silent a moment before she answers.

“I’m sorry about you two fighting.” And by her tone Beca can tell she honestly means that, which Beca is pretty grateful for.

“Thanks. I’m sorry that our date is in this sorry state.”

Chloe grabs Beca’s arm without much thought and gives it a comforting squeeze.

“Don’t be. At least we’re finally giving it a shot.”

They’re silent a moment. Both looking at eachother with equal adoration before Beca turns her head back to the road. Beca breaks the silence again.

“Hey what do you reckon the Bellas are up to right now?”

“A night in with Pizza, according to Amy.”

“Really? That’s awesome, I miss those nights.”

“Me too.” Chloe answers.

“I miss spending them with you.” Beca admits after a few seconds. “You know, like the movie nights? And the co-captain’s-”

“And the co-captain’s sofa.” Chloe finishes, nodding along.

It was right in the middle of the room, dead in front of the big-ass TV. And when Beca and Chloe demanded it, all the other Bella’s gave it to them, albeit huffily. It was the only rule that remained, beside the pledge in regards to Bella leadership. Because all agreed for the amount of effort the two put in leading them unpaid it was the least they as a team could do.

“Hey leading a sorority-of-sorts had it perks, didn’t it?”

She NEVER thought Beca would admit that’s what they were. Well, they weren’t really, although Chloe guessed they were pretty exclusive. And they did have their own house. But they didn’t have any stupid Greek name or anything! Nothing like that!

“You hated the movies though, you’d always complain through the whole thing. It was a huge effort to get you to be there like, at all.”

“The popcorn was good though! And the blanket!”

“The blanket was so soft. You giving me a dead shoulder from falling asleep and snoring though? Not ideal.”

“Hey, you’re pretty comfy red.”

Chloe grins as she remembers the number of times Beca feel asleep on her shoulder. The one time in particular during labyrinth that Beca hugged her arm like a teddy as she slept, hands interwoven with hers. Chloe’s heart had nearly exploded. Luckily the blanket covered the intimacy. That was a great night. Great movie too.

“Beca if you wanted to sleep next to me you just had to ask.” Beca’s face flames up and Chloe smirks. Who was the red one now?

“No but one more serious thing before we chillax.” Chloe stops them.

“Shoot.”

“No physical stuff tonight. Okay? I- it’s just not fair-”

Chloe has to stop herself from being embarrassed about that, but it was a pretty good clause, if she didn’t mind adding herself. It was the best policy, she’d been thinking about how they’d act and what they’d say to each other for the whole two hours of Beca’s absence.

“No, I get it. Completely. I agree. No physical stuff. None.”

Chloe breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“No problem. That everything? Feeling a little less glum now chum?”

It was the obvious? Chloe punches her in the arm and laughs.

“Shut up I’m never glum.”

_No, you’re not. Beca thinks to herself. When you’re you, you burn as brilliantly and warmly as the sun._

\----

They drive into Melbourne, laughing and relaxed, slowly re-learning things about each-other they'd forgotten, or even neglected to say. It's nice, and the time seems to fly by and Chloe isn't so sure what she was worried about to even begin with. They reconnect again almost instantaneously. There's a struggle as she tries to assist Beca with the Map reading, without Beca actually giving the location of their destination away, but they somehow manage it as they make it into the city center, and Beca swears obscenely trying to find a place to park. Chloe tries to keep her own stress levels low for the two of them.

Eventually, they find a spot in the multi-storey, an exhausted Beca trying to muster some energy, and Chloe tries to make her feel better by taking her hand, which works. They exit like that, together walking down the road. Chloe suddenly feels so much younger than she really is, like she's a university student again! This is how her girls made her feel. It was exhilarating! She barely registers their surroundings until Beca stops them in front of a beautifully constructed build Chloe can’t say she’s really heard of before. “The Edge.” A large sign reads in front of them. It seems like a tourist attraction. Sort of Melbourne’s version of the Rockerfeller center, but hopefully it was built by less dubious people. The cynic in her doubts that’s the case however. Interesting choice for a once in a lifetime vacation. Chloe hadn’t actually been on safari yet, and did kinda hope that’s what Beca had planned, but none-the-less, seeing a foreign city was still pretty awesome she supposed.

“We’re going in here?” Chloe grins at Beca excited.

“I heard big city views can be pretty romantic at sunset.”

“And here I was thinking we were going to the theatre district.”

“Actually, that was one of the first ideas I considered, but listening to Aussie's attempt broadway? I think we’ve heard enough of that already.”

“Amy’s one woman shows are…”

“-Something.” Beca finishes. “They sure are.”

“Well, I thank you from saving us from that fate.”

Chloe beams at the DJ finishing her sentence and sticks out her hand again. Beca shyly takes it in hers and blushes. Chloe has to resist and audible aww.

“Shut up.” Beca mumbles.

Chloe just gives her a quick peck on the cheek which makes her blush even harder.

There’s an empty express line and a separate line for tickets and Beca surprises her by guiding her straight through to the express line. Beca pulls out her phone and is selecting a couple of what looks like links and emails and power walks up to the elevator where a Bell-man is waiting; practically dragging a flustered Chloe behind her in the process. Chloe barely has any time to register what the place looks like before she’s forced inside, still clutching onto Beca’s hand. That realization makes her internally beam a little. She’s holding Beca’s hand. Beca shows him what Chloe assumes is a ticket and they exchange a few nods and murmurs before the Bell-man kindly announces.

“88th floor. Going up.”

Chloe gives Beca’s hand an excited squeeze, which the small woman returns with a grin. What a nerd, taking her to a viewpoint like they were in some romance movie; SO cheesy, Chloe loved it. Also, kind of un-Beca-ish? Sort of. Maybe she didn’t know as much about the younger woman as she thought.

\----

They stand in the elevator in an electric silence, both too focused on what they were about to see than conversation, and both feeling comfortable enough that speaking wasn’t really needed. A reassuring realization. But then comes the moment the elevator opens, and Chloe sees what’s in front of them, and the beauty of it takes her breath away.

“Beca, oh my god.”

Her hand slowly slips from Beca’s and Chloe’s drawn instantly to one of the outstretched box windows that overlooks half the city. Beca doesn’t mind though, and waits behind a little, watching her go. It’s great seeing Chloe so interested. Chloe barely glances at the guard, as she weaves round the empty queue line and half guiltily Beca flashes him the tickets to prove her friend isn’t looking for a free visit. Good naturedly he nods back. It was such typical Chloe to nearly get them kicked out of places. She thanks the guard, who’s name happens to be Pete and just watches Chloe’s silhouette against the glass. She’s pressed up against it like she’s five. No hint of any fear despite being 88 floors above ground. Effectively, she’s just dangling in the sky; but she doesn’t care and it’s impressive. That’s her Chloe, fearless, impulsive and in the light of the sunset, positively gorgeous.

As Beca steps onto the podium to join her, the ginger turns around, blue eyes sparkling with wonder. Beca is unaware of the same life in her own.

“Wow.” Chloe says.

“I know.” Beca answers. Aware that they’re probably talking about different things.

“Why didn’t you just get married in Melbourne Becs? This is incredible!”

“Melbourne prices are a little bit above my paygrade.”

“I honestly didn’t have you pegged to be this much of a romantic-” Chloe’s voice hitches. She tries not to think of what this means if Beca chooses Jesse, because after how good this evening had been so far, if this was just a one-time thing- She frowns.

“Wait, what are you doing?”

Beca pauses taking out her phone.

“Oh this? This is, don’t mind me, just carry on being angelic, seriously just do your thing.” Beca says with a wave of her hand. She levels the camera to look at Chloe and suddenly Chloe feels very exposed. The camera just about manages to capture the indignation of her next question.

“That’s not answering my question. Beca… what are you up too?”

“Nothing!” Beca responds a little too quickly. A little too high-pitched as well. Chloe’s not buying it. There’s mischief going on. A little bit of excitement makes its way into her system.

“Bullshit.” Chloe responds with warm wariness.

“Just don’t look down.” Oh fuck. Of course she looks down.

“Wait what? Beca what do you mean don’t look down? What’s about to happen to us? Beca-”

“Three, two, ONE!” Beca chants, and of course Chloe looks down, and then the floor is gone.

\----

“NO! Noooooo. What?” Chloe squeals. “What is this? What just happened?”

Beca is crying with laughter. “You jumped!”

“What?”

“You physically jumped you were so scared! You went in so quickly that you didn’t read the sign!”

Beca points to the sign conveniently placed beside Pete. He’s trying to avoid looking at them directly, which Beca supposes is pretty understandable. She’d hate to have a social awkward job like this one. Chloe suddenly registers her hands are back against the wall. She’s splayed against the wall actually. Which she sure as shit wasn’t before! Maybe she wasn’t as brave as Beca had her pictured in her mind after all.

“I jumped?” Chloe blinks through dissipating fear.

“If there were no floor that wouldn’t have helped at all!” Beca is wheezing with laughter.

It’s _crazy_ , fuck. They’re just standing on a couple of panes of glass holy shit! Chloe can’t even clearly make out any people below them. Some hysterical giggling comes from her mouth and Chloe joins in the laughing, and watching the two fools around Pete the guard just smiles. At times like this, his job could be pretty cool. He glances at his watch. Only two more hours until his shift ended and he could see his kids and he could tell them stories of his crazy customers. He was fairly certain they’d like hearing about these two. They were certainly cute together.

\----

“Oh man, hey a text from Beca and Chloe on the group chat.” **_Chloe fail._** Is all the text reads next to a video of them in some building? For a few seconds Emily is confused before Chloe practically leaps out her skin as the floor disappears. Emily cackles unwillingly almost instantly, then covers her mouth. Damn her mom for her stupid inherited laugh.

“What is it?” Jessica (or was it Ashley?) asks. And Emily smiles, handing the phone round the amused group. There’s another round of laughter as she grabs yet another slice of pizza from the box. Thank god they bought garlic dip this time.

\---- “

Oh no, that’s what the camera is for! You recorded it didn’t you!” Chloe cringes and groans. She was not going to live this down at all.

“I did.” Beca admits.

Chloe feels her phone buzz. Not the group chat. But she already has a gut feeling.

“You didn’t.”

“Oh, but I did.” Beca answers, dangling the phone from her hand, showing the video very clearly in their group chat. She feels her face begin to burn with cringe.

“You are so dead Mitchell!” 

"Oh, am I? What are you gonna do about it?”

The tiny woman answers playfully. Chloe doesn’t hesitate. Within seconds she’s backed her into the glass, and has Beca’s arms pinned forcefully above her head. Her face is centimeters away from Beca’s. Beca looks honest to god terrified. The security guard was probably loving this. She moves her head to the side and gives a cheeky wave to the confused family in the next window. Then she moves her attention back to Beca.

“I'm gonna make you stay here until the sun’s completely gone, and everyone has gone home." Chloe purrs. "...I'm going to make you wait until we're all alone.”

Beca dry swallows. This quickly took a turn she hadn’t expected.

“And then?” Beca asks, slightly turned on. Chloe lets her go and backs away. Just like that. Beca misses her body heat so close to hers. 

"...And then you drive me home. And you buy me some fast food. I’m craving a bacon and cheese burger and sweet potato fries.”

Beca is practically radiating sexual frustration. Which is hilarious, because as far is Chloe is concerned, her rules still stand.

“But for now?”

Chloe without breaking eye contact, sits on the floor and gestures Beca to join her. Beca for a macro-moment just gazes in awe as the evening's orange light frames Chloe’s face. She had no idea what god was thinking when he made this one so perfect. How he thought anyone stood a chance of not falling for her even a little. Was that sort of beauty intended as a gift to the world or was it meant to be cruel? Maybe both. Whoever the universe’s creator he had a thing for balance. Though Beca had never figured out why they liked it that way.

“For now, we just look at the sunset.” Chloe finishes simply.

“...Sounds perfect.”

Beca says and plops onto the floor beside her. Chloe takes a long-fingered hand in her own and rests her head on Beca’s shoulder. Beca leans some of her weight into the taller woman’s body and tries not to smile about the stupid logistics of head-leaning being this way around. Stupid short people problems.


	11. Wild Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of the cheeky Bechloe date. Things get a little bit spicier up in here.

#  Wild Thoughts 

### Chapter 11

When they finally get back home it’s past 2AM, and all the lights to the Bella house are all off. They were getting old. Nights out? Not so long lasting anymore; and on this occasion Beca was pretty grateful for that. She shuts off the car engine, and the bright yellow lighting disappears, engulfing them into the dark night. Beca can just about see Chloe’s eyes glinting playfully at her under the moonlight. She laughs.

“What is it Chloe?”

Chloe smiles at her.

“Nothing, I just- I had a lot of fun tonight. I don’t really want it to be over.”

“Me too.”

Chloe sighs lamentingly.

“But it’s 2am, and you were supposed to tell Jesse before midnight.”

Beca leans over and puts a reassuring hand on her arm.

“I’ll tell him today. But I… I want you to know I had a lot of fun tonight. Even if I should probably, definitely go home now. …I will go home though, if that’s what you want.” Beca says.

Chloe unbuckles the seatbelt, not able to answer her, and listens to it thud dully against the door frame as she gets out. Her anxiousness is back for good reason, but she is also kind of mad it had to kill the mood between them. There’d been some serious re-connection between them all night long and if this were any other person, any other date, Chloe would take them to bed immediately, without a second thought.

Beca also gets out, assuming to walk Chloe to the door in the gentlemanly fashion. It’s kind of pointless but she likes it none-the-less. She’s conscious of the brunette right behind her as she twists her key into the door. Is that what she really wanted? For Beca to leave?

“Goodnight Chloe.”

Beca finishes quietly, from behind her. Apparently interpreting her silence as an answer. Damn it.

“Beca!”

She hears herself say before she even gets the time to really think this through. Shit. Then her arm is out and grabbing the brunette by the arm. Double shit. Chloe bites her lip, then stopping her racing brain, wheels Beca around and kisses her. Beca just kind of melts into Chloe’s body and throws her arms around Chloe’s neck. Chloe thinks it’s the sexiest thing ever, and is temporally elated, but she pulls back none the less. It was a good thirty seconds of bliss.

“I- I just had to know.” Chloe says as way of explanation. Hand waving in the air as if that somehow makes it more casual. “If it was like just a one-time-firework-chemistry sort of thing. For investment reasons, you know?”

“No yeah, sure totally.” Beca coughs awkwardly, trying to think straight again. “… I mean was it? Kinda a one-time chemistry thing?”

“Do you want to come inside?” Chloe says. Guess that answers Beca’s question.

“Yessiree.”

Beca immediately regrets opening her big mouth, that was super lame. Then Chloe grabs of her hand hard and practically drags her indoors. They try to stifle their giggling as they fumble in the darkness on their way too Chloe’s room. This time thankfully no bowls are broken, as neither of the two are actually drunk, nor are there any bowls actually left to break. At least they don’t have to climb up any stairs.

“Shit!” Beca cusses under her breath.

“What is it.”

“Mmmmmn I just stubbed my toe on Steve. Stupid tortoise.”

“You’re such a dork.” Chloe hisses through the dark.

“And yet you _love_ me.” Beca says louder. God Chloe hates her right now. Grinning, she slams Beca into her bedroom door, and lets her hands begin to explore the brunette's bare torso; not to any complaints. There’s a slight judder, but not loud enough for anyone to notice.

Dominant Chloe was… something else. Beca decided she liked her immensely. Beca has to supress kissing her; and lets loose the smallest sigh she can as the ginger starts to lay atrial of kisses down her neck. She grabs Chloe by the waistline of her jeans and closes her eyes in bliss, but shoves the older woman away when she feels… biting. OW!

“Hickies? Really? We’re not twelve.” She whispers in the dark.

There’s an unseeable laugh back. It’s kinda surreal. Beca rubs her neck.

“I thought it would be hilarious.”

“For Jesse or my whole family to see? That’s hilarious to you? An unexplainable hickey? On the day before my wedding!”

“Hey, we both know MY stance on this wedding.”

The un-embodied voice of Chloe responds.

“No physical markings!”

Beca berates the seemingly thin air in front of her.

“Spoil sport.”

Chloe answers, shoving the bedroom door open and causing Beca to fumble backwards into the room. She catches herself on the desk and spins to try and see Chloe entering the darkness after her.

…She’s doing a bad thing, isn’t she? **_Oh, hey there morality! Where have you been this whole 48 hours?_**   Beca snaps at her mind. Which doesn’t really make sense because, well it’s still her. God, what was she doing? She was in a relationship. She was (she thought) happily engaged to a man who loved her… and now she’d not only cheated on him, but she’d dragged a woman she loved and who loved her into a… whatever this was. They only had a day to go. What was she doing? She was going to hurt somebody no matter what she did now it was inevitable. This was awful. Why did people risk getting married?

The light in the rooms flicks on and Beca blinks back the blinding light.

“Beca?”

Beca doesn’t reply as she makes her way to the end of Chloe’s bed and flops down.

“Becs what’s up?”

Chloe lands on the bed next to her and Beca is briefly bounced up and down.

“I… cheated on him.”

Ah. Is all Chloe mentally replies.

“I cheated on my fiancé because… I think I like you.”

That’s generally how cheating works. Chloe thinks, then frowns. She was going to have to find a less sarcastic and audible response soon.

“Like I don’t- this isn’t because I’m bored or, or scared or anything I don’t want you to think that.”

“I know.” Chloe softly replies. Beca wasn’t cruel by nature, she’d never string someone along deliberately.

“This- I- I didn’t mean-”

Beca starts hyper ventilating. World of emotional pain coming right up all their alleys. Why hasn’t she told him the truth yet? Chloe kisses her so she finally stops speaking. Beca takes that cue that for now at least, they’re ignoring the hell out of this. Chloe pulls away to give her time to think. They were ignoring this like champions. If there were an award for best ignorer to ever ignore, they’d be winning. But it was a thing they were willing to ignore together. So, so be it. Beca sucks up the reality and rolls so she’s on top of Chloe, resting a leg either side of her waist. Her arms rest around the ginger’s neck, and she’s wringing her hands, but at least Chloe can’t see that part.

“We could have had this five years ago. Everything could’ve been different. If I’d kissed you at that acapella kegger.” She rambles. God being emotionally honest sucked. “Because I thought about it, after you leaned in Chloe, I thought about it. Like all night practically.”

Beca rolls her eyes at her former self to take away some of the seriousness, but Chloe sees right through it. Chloe was pretty smashed that night, there’s honestly not a lot she could really remember. Up until now, they hadn’t really talked about the kegger.

“We have it now.”

“It could be the only time we have it.”

Beca answers almost crushed. Chloe just smiles sadly, better to have had it at least once she reckons, then not at all.

“Then why are we spending it so tragically?”

And Beca’s lips are on hers, and Chloe is falling backward onto the bed, pulling the small brunette down with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmmmn smut chapter or not next? I'm debating it. We'll see. Anyway I'm sorry about the long ass update interval but I hope you all thought it was worth the wait.


	12. I just had Sex!

#  I just had sex!

### Chapter 12

In the morning, for reasons unknown, Beca’s eyes flash open and she actually feels… refreshed. Not tired. Like at all which was odd considering all the activity they had going on last night. Her face suddenly flushes red and she looks up to already find a sleepily grinning Chloe already gazing at her. Beca thinks her heart skips a beat. Beautiful.

“Hi.” She says, looking into those coral reef eyes, and it’s like she’s swimming in some tropical paradise, it’s perfect. Warm creases appear at the side of Chloe’s face, something that only happened when the ginger was full on beaming. Beca wants to reach up and touch her cheek but Chloe beats her to it, soft fingers grazing down the side of Beca’s face. Beca can feel her head turn into them. She’s very familiar with those fingers now. Pleasantly so. Her lower body begins to tingle.

“Hey.” Chloe answers softly, sub-consciously biting her lip. “We should really get some new dialogue to start our conversations with huh?”

“That’s oddly specific.” Beca says.

“Hmmmn.” Is all Chloe responds with and Beca can see that she’s staring at her lips, and that Chloe’s still biting her own, and it’s actually kinda hot, so Beca quickly gives her a peck on the lips then moves back, to where she was.

“You were staring.”

Chloe gives her a peck back. Then another, slower, lingering on Beca’s lips just a little bit longer, just enough to hint for something more.

“I wasn’t hiding that I was.”

Beca playfully rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, you’ve only been hiding it for the last five years.”

Chloe laughs and rolls on top of her, straddling both her hips with ease. Sending Beca into overdrive well… everywhere. _Chloe abs._ She dumbly registers.

“Ready for round four Mitchell?” And her hands slide up the ginger’s bare thighs.

“Yes please.” The Dj actually sighs. Beca’s such a weak ass bitch.

Anyway, it was time to take that T-shirt that had somehow found its way back on to Chloe’s body off again, so, who was she to complain.

\----

The squealing and laughter being emitted from Chloe’s room forced Amy to groan out loud for the third time this morning.

“It’s nine-thirty how are ginge and shorty still at it? Give it a rest!”

She yells in their direction. Barely loud enough for them to actually hear her of course. None of them wanted to particularly interrupt whatever the two captains had going on right now, though, the guess was pretty obvious.

“I slept for barely six hours last night.” Stacie continues. “They came home at like 2am and I could hear them until like three thirty.”

“…sdfvr…” Lily says.

“What?” Flo interrupts, before just deciding to continue where Stacie had left off. “Ugh I need at least ten hours beauty sleep, this is how you get bags under your eyes.”

“We _all_ have bags under our eyes after last night. It is clear Bloe does not care for strict beauty regimes like the rest of us.”

“Hey you guys!”

“Hey Emily.” Aubrey laughs pulling the youngest Bella into a hug. After world’s the two of them had actually hit it off pretty quickly, and had soon become as tight as the young girl had with the rest. Maybe Aubrey saw a lot of herself in the legacy, or perhaps she imagined Emily was the soft, kind person she could potentially be without the presence of her domineering father. You know if you really wanted to be deep about it. Plus, Bree had always had a soft spot for kids… logically she knew that Emily wasn’t one of course, but Amy’s jokes about her being Chloe and Beca’s Aca-child had maybe rubbed off on her. Being a Dulah slash former Bella captain, the mom-friend was a role she relished and was all too familiar with, yep, she was defo Emily’s step-aca-mom for sure. Besides who was the alternative for that role? Crazed aunt Amy?

“Boy, Beca and Chloe are sure having a long pillow fight huh?” Emily continues innocently.

“Oh Legacy. Sometimes you make me feel like your parents must do on a regular basis.” Amy says.

Speaking of Amy.

“Super proud?” Emily beams. Aw. That was so not where Amy was going with that, Aubrey thinks, then gives their legacy a tight squeeze.

“Sure Junk, bet they’re proud.” CR finishes for them, interrupting the Aussie and shaking her head at her before Amy can land a crushing insult. Keep Emily nice and innocent. That’s the way forward.

“Hey guys!” A male voice stops the Bella’s conversation mid-track. So unexpected it is, it causes Cynthia to choke mid-sip of her coffee. Slowly, they turn to face the door. In the shock, Jessica swoops to catch a piece of toast that was about to fall from Ashley’s hand. They just about hear her murmur some thanks. Emily is the one who powers through the awkward.

“Jesse. Hey bud! What are you doing here? how are things? Life- we haven’t had a conversation in such a long time.”

Emily sputters. It takes her a couple of seconds to decide how to lean or maybe pose against the counter, and it isn’t subtle OR smooth. Flo is surprised she doesn’t actually fall over. The Legacy was like a real life silent movie that her mother used to make her watch. What was that white man called? Charlie Chaplin?

“Actually, no we haven’t, not since you dumped Benji.” He says back.

“OH! Yep. Yes, that was unfortunate.” Emily answers, sliding back defensively behind Aubrey. The blonde sighs, ready to take over as usual.

“Now isn’t the best time for you to be here, we’re having a Bella-only breakfast so you should probably go home Jesse.” He raises his hands up in submission.

“Listen, I know you’ve probably heard about my fight with Beca and I just came here to look for her. I got a text saying she was staying with Chloe and I’ve given her space but we’re getting married tomorrow, I need to solve this.”

Laughter then erupts from the room down the hall before Chloe’s door opens and the ginger comes twirling out, light on her heels and absolutely beaming. An equally glowing Beca follows, not taking her eyes of the ginger for even a second. The two are absolutely oblivious to their captive audience. Stacie notes that both their hair is wet and grins. It’s all innocent, at least, until Cynthia-Rose coughs to grab their attention, and the two turn and notice the new arrival their faces reset in shock.

“Er- Uhhhh.” Amy begins to hum, breaking the awkward silence finally.

“We’re just going to leave. All of us right now, we’re going to go far, FAR away from here.” Aubrey intervenes. As usual.

“Yeah, I just remembered I have somewhere to be.” Flo gestures to the front door, and the gaze of the entire party looks desperately to the only escape route. “Juice truck stuff.”

“Jessica and I will come with you!” Ashley chimed in. Wait wasn’t that one Jessica? 

"Yeah Flo, me too.” Emily desperately adds quickly catching up.

“Okay, well I don’t have anywhere to be. I just don’t want to be here because of this incredibly awkward situation.” Amy adds.

“Smart move.” Beca mumbles. Chloe wacks her hard in the arm in response.

Amy would later describe the next five-minute hustling out of that kitchen as the most awkward and pathetic scene in Bella history. This would probably be true, had she not forgotten Aubrey Anne Posen’s chunder volcano that had occurred at regionals pre their freshman year. However, in her defence, acapella is not at the forefront of thought when addressing wedding disasters waiting to happen. As it stands, this is rightly so.

Chloe’s brain is rushing again at 20,000 kilometres per second. Don’t mind her, just let her stand in the doorway, outside her room in her gym shorts and with Beca half a meter away wearing- oh god she’s wearing Chloe’s shirt. She lets out a small squeak when she realizes that’s all Beca is wearing. Her shirt and some underwear. That’s probably what she wore the morning after she’d had sex with Jesse. Well not her t-shirts obviously, but Jesse’s tees. He was a pretty cool guy he probably just called them tees like that. Yeah, he could get away with it, what with his olive skin and adorable grin. A mouthful of bile makes its way into her mouth at that thought. Oh god he knows. How could he not know? Part of her just wants to yell at him right there and then: I BANGED YOUR FIANCÉE. She doesn’t.

“Beca.” He says. And he’s smiling, and fuck her life it’s the same expression she has every time she lays eyes on Beca herself. One of complete and utter adoration. Fuck her, what had they done?

“Jesse.” Beca smiles. And the fake happiness is so obviously fake he definitely picks up on it. Beca was a terrible liar. "Whaaaaat are you doing here?"

Chloe bites down on her lip. So was she. They were so totally made. He takes a tentative step forward.

“What’s wrong? You’re not still mad, are you?” He looks Chloe up and down. Not really suspiciously, thank goodness, but the judgement is there which puts her on the defensive.

“Chloe.” He nods at her in greeting, somewhat confused. Then she remembers she stuck around in the room when the others had left to clearly give Beca and Jesse some couple time. And that she stupidly stayed thinking that he’d just get straight to accusing them, and she’s only half dressed and she’s made no effort to leave. Ohhhhh she’d made it worse. Yep. Good one there Beale.

“Hey Jesse.” She answers with a meek wave. Apparently choosing to stay, Interesting. Jesse lightly frowns but eventually turns his attention back to Beca, who is nonchalantly twiddling her thumbs.

“Becs? Are you going to answer me there, space-man?”

“Space-woman.”

Beca mumbles, running a hand through her hair before huffing out a very nervous breath; and then her hands do a slightly subtler “shake it off” manoeuvre by her sides before they settle. She’s stealing herself, Chloe notices, before she gets ready too. Here it comes.

“Listen Jesse, there’s something I’ve been keeping from you that I think you need to know.”

“Okay…”

Beca sighs again, though more dramatically. Desperately trying to swallow normally despite thinking her throats is going to close up.

“Phew, this is, actually really tough to admit.” Beca nervously laughs. She isn’t sure why, that wasn’t like- appropriate at all. She was so awkward and sweaty. Really sweaty, was it hot in here all of a sudden? She was just wearing a t-shirt and nobody just in a t-shirt should feel this hot indoors. “Okay so Chloe’s involved, so that’s why she’s here still but it isn’t her fault. None of this is her fault, it’s just me to blame alright, just me. This was my decision and it was a fucked-up thing to do but I did it anyway because I’m an idiot _surprise **surprise**_ so don’t blame her. Don’t even look at her, she’s not here.” Beca’s hands move up and sort of mime Chloe being erased, as if she was just a previous teacher’s notes on a whiteboard. That sort of existential irrelevance is kind of close to what Chloe is feeling about now, so she thinks it’s rather apt. “Take it- take it all out on me.” Beca concludes.

“Take what out on you?”

 _ **Don’t take it all out on her!**   _Chloe mentally yells. But she can sense that somehow, it’s not her place to speak right now, it’s not her moment yet.

“You might want to sit down actually.” Beca adds.

“No, I’m actually pretty good standing right now, and you still haven’t answered me.” He says patiently.

“Jesse please sit down.” Beca pleads again.

“Beca could you just tell me what’s going on please?” His voice has risen slightly now and there’s a note of pain in it. Chloe guesses he’s either now put two and two together, or is certainly heading in the right direction being upset. “Fine.” He says a bit bitterly before he saltily takes a seat at the counter. Then to both Chloe and Beca’s surprise, he focuses on her. “Chloe what’s going on?”

“I-” Chloe starts- panic already beginning to build in her chest. But Beca cuts her off again, apparently serious about the pretending she isn’t here comment.

“I cheated on you.” Beca blurts suddenly.

“What?” Jesse responds almost immediately. That’s weird Chloe expected a dramatic pause or something. These revelations always seemed to happen slowly in all the books she’d read in Russian lit.

“I cheated on you.” Beca repeats matter of factly. Jesse seems… lightly stunned. Like the full weight of the news hasn’t quite reached his brain yet.

“With who?” He manages to blink. The connection finally finishing buffering. Beca doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have too. Her eyes automatically flick to Chloe for the briefest moment. He sees. His eyes darken. “With her?” His voice cracks, and Beca knows his heart is keeping in sync with it, mirroring it; because her heart, being connected to his for so long, is breaking too. Rupturing badly with this knowledge of a betrayal she had promised him she would never commit. Shit.

“I can explain.” She answers. Her voice is equally raw.

“Can you? The day before our wedding? CAN you?”

And Beca wants to explain, how Chloe came out of nowhere and finally confessed her love, and how Beca had planned on ignoring it but found she couldn’t, no matter how hard she had tried. But she didn’t try hard. She wasn’t sure she wanted to try hard which was confusing as hell to her. It was confusing as hell to Chloe too, and neither of them had any idea what was going on. And that she had meant to tell him the truth for so _SO_ long now.

“You’re wearing her top. No, I’ve seen that before on her, it’s part of a set she has isn’t it? _UNBELIEVABLE_.” 

He yells exacerbated. Beca and Chloe don't really know what to say to that, they're just sort of flabbergasted; because as things go, it was a pretty unbelievably dickish thing that they'd done.

“Is that- is that why you left me last night? To go fuck Chloe?”

The use of the swear word cuts deeper somehow.

“No.” Beca lies.

“No? Then why are you in her top Becs? Why did you stay over? You’ve never been that petty in a fight before, you’ve never walked out on me before. Not since our freshman year when you promised me- you were into me. Promised me that you wouldn’t do that again.” He’s reflective before he speaks again, he sighs. “…the fight was just an excuse. Damn Beca. That night, that first day we were in a relationship, you promised me you were into me.”

“I _was_ into you.”

“Oh, but you’re not now?”

It's a petty and obvious shot, but Jesse feels all the more righteous for saying it.

_“Of course, I am!”_

“Then why are you with her right before we get married! How the _HELL_ did this even happen?”

“Well I-” Chloe starts again without really thinking, then Beca takes hold of Jesse’s arm.

“Let’s talk about this in another room. Just us.” Beca’s voice is calmer now, like she has more control over the situation. Her eyes flick briefly to Chloe’s, and Chloe watches curiously as she moves her other free hand to intimately rest on his chest. “Please.” She’s got his attention again. Chloe wants to swat her hand off his body. Jesse flashes her an irritated look her way, but his eyes move back to his current fiancée. “We can talk on the veranda. Chloe can you… give us some space.”

“Sure thing.” Chloe nods.

“ _CHLOE_. Don’t speak. If you even move, I’m afraid I’m going to hit you. I don’t want too, but fuck am I this close.”

 **“Don’t you dare!”** Beca snaps back at him.

“Let go of me Beca.”

“Jesse if you lay one hand on her-”

“I said let go, and I’m not going to the veranda. I’m leaving and going back to our apartment. Feel free to follow me and ‘fix’ this.”

Then he rounds on Chloe again and through the anger she can see the disappointment and pain. “You got lucky this time Beale; and if there is a wedding after all of this, you’re definitely not invited.”

“No, you’re not leaving. Not before we resolve this together!”

“Yeah well personally I think you resolved this when you slept with her!”

Beca rolls her eyes.

“C’mon Jesse.”

“Don’t be sarcastic with me right now!”

“Oh, don’t be sarcastic? Like I’m the only bad guy here right now. Like you didn’t cheat on me with that hot assistant out in LA!”

And just like that Beca drops another A-bomb. Chloe swears she suddenly feels the room drop a solid 30 degrees at least. Her eyebrows lightly furrow, did Chloe just see her breath?

“What are you talking about?”

“You are such a fucking hypocrite.” Beca’s cracking voice continues.

“I told you that never happened.” Jesse says, awkwardly side eying Chloe, who, personally doesn’t really feel like she should be listening in on this either. For once her and the treble are in agreement.

“I went through your email.” Beca says accusingly.

“And found what exactly?” His voice is low, and vaguely threatening. She’s never seen this side of Jesse before. It’s scary. Jesse feels like he’s been punched repeatedly in the face by a professional MMA fighter. One that’s targeted him simply for having been standing in the ring. He’s not sure how he got into it either. He’s not a fighter, hell he isn’t even in his gym clothes; and funnily enough the referee is wearing his fiancée’s face and is yelling at him. He suddenly feels the need to start hitting back. Referees shouldn’t take sides! “Why were you reading my email when you should trust me?”

“I thought I could.” Beca whispers.

“What else did you go through!?”

Beca dodges the question.

“Well, if I could trust you, I wouldn’t have found _naked pictures of her!”_

“She misinterpreted the situation!”

“Oh I'm sure it’s very hard to misinterpret ‘here are the pictures you asked for Mr. Swanson.’”

Beca moves into falsetto and Chloe senses that’s a huge fucking mistake; because for the briefest of moments Jesse sees red-

-Then it’s black.

Because a fist connects with his jaw in a perfectly placed uppercut.

It is so well placed in fact, that Jesse Roderick Swanson immediately crashes to the ground. On the floor he blinks through the stars, his blurred vision just managing to take note of the red head standing still above him. Fist still triumphantly clenched. Stupid. He thinks, head falling back onto the marble floor. He was yelling at the ref when his real rival was still in the ring. His world fades to nothingness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took the coming out of Pitch Perfect 3 for me to even make sense of writing this chapter I re-planned it so many times. I think it came together in a reasonably sane manner though, lotsa metaphors- nom. SO GET READY FOR THE FINAL CHAPTER EVERYONE WHAAAAAAT- SHE'S A COMIN' and thank you to all of you who have left me such nice feed back on what will be my first and probably last fic. You've been so kind. xxx


	13. Go Your Own Way

#  Go Your Own Way

###  Chapter 13

The steady beeping of the hospital equipment put her on edge. Chloe hated hospitals, and all the unnatural light that buzzed through them. They always smelt of death or sterility, which were both words that conjured up distinctly the lack of life. She shakes her head, anyone could testify that this was the polar opposite of herself. She was in direct conflict with her environment here; it was understandable that a huge part of her was aching to leave. They’d come in yesterday after Jesse had been knocked out. Post-punch, he’d stayed under for a good twenty seconds or so before waking up again, and when they decided to take him to hospital to check for concussion, he- well, he fell unconscious. A pretty sure sign, so, they put him here. It was a mess. Beca had called his family, and Chloe was ushered from the scene very quickly. They asked Beca to delay the wedding, which Chloe thought was a tad of an over response. But Beca responded with the answer that they couldn't, because well, the hotel had been booked months beforehand. They weren't just going to have a spare reservation lying around, that would be ridiculous.  Apparently things got pretty heated after that, or so Beca had told her, understandably she wasn't in the mood for a fight and so just accepted Jesse's mom's terms. His brother was to re-arrange everything via Aubrey for them to marry in a couple of days. If the man could wrangle it. Chloe doubted it would be that simple. She also doubted it was going to happen. Everyone was going home soon. At least they'd been spared the knowledge about the affair though, and that would have cancelled the event anyway, so, in a way, it was sort of good fortune this happened, she supposed. It also meant Beca and her could watch over him this morning without his family crowding them and asking too many questions. Her heart plummeted. How would she have even begun explaining that she’d knocked out a man because she was protecting his fiancee. Who by the why, she had recently seduced.

Jesse had briefly stirred earlier, and Beca had spoken to him a little before she had left to get proper food away from the hospital. So, Chloe had been left in charge of his resting soul, trying not to let her guilt complex eat her alive. She hears a moan and her eyes flicker to the stirring man in the bed. At once his eyes open and hazily make contact with hers. The anxiety in her stomach about talking to him suddenly trebles. She's a doe caught in the headlights of a semi-truck.

“I’ll get Beca.” She says immediately. Already bolting to the door.

“No, don’t!” He stops her. Hand outstretched to grab her arm. “I want to talk to you actually, if that’s alright.”

Chloe slumps back into her seat, eyebrows knitted in concern.

“Are you alright? I feel terrible about knocking you out, and about _the other thing_.”

He watches her nervously pull on the sleeves of her sweater. Her face flushes bright red in embarrassment.

“I must’ve really hurt you. I know Beca tried to put it all on her, but you should know that isn’t the truth." Red rakes a frustrated hand through her hair. All the pain of the past week, combines with all the guilt she's feeling now, and it's all so intense. Chloe feels hot tears begin to prickle in her eyes. "I told her I loved her. I just couldn’t keep it in anymore, it was killing me; and I know that right before your wedding was a terrible time to announce it. And Stacie thought I wouldn’t actually crack until you were married, and then I’d just turn up and ‘turn’ Beca, can you believe it? I was _so_ dumb and _so_ selfish but Beca wanted me to be at the wedding, and I thought coming along would be the right thing to do even though I didn’t want to be here and-”

 _Turn her?_ Oh God Stacie no.

“Chloe whoa- stop. Just slow down. I’m the one who needs to apologize. What you and Beca did- it _hurt_. Hurts. Honestly that’s going to hurt me for a long time probably, there’s no escaping that truth. But I’m trying to at least accept it." He sighs defeated, and Chloe's heart breaks for him too. Unexpected. "Beca and I, well we talked and we figured… we can’t get married. Not after the pain we’ve caused each-other.”

“Oh.”

She probably shouldn't feel as happy as she does when she hears that news. Hopefully Chloe doesn't sound it. 

“Yeah. And I need to apologize for threatening you. I was angry and scared. I still am angry and I'm _trying_ to understand it, but I want you to know, I’d never hit you, and I would never harm Beca. I don’t know what you think you saw in me when you hit me. But I assume you were just trying to protect her right?”

Chloe blushes a deep red at her mistake.

“I-”

“No, it’s okay. Men can be scary angry toward women sometimes. My mom taught me to respect and understand that.”

Chloe breathes a sigh of relief.

“Okay.”

“Plus, I’m doing alright all things considered. Mostly I’m just a little bit shocked that I got knocked out and given a concussion with just one punch.”

Chloe nods slowly.

“Krav-Maga. My Pilates teacher went to Israel and got inspired so-”

Jesse nods.

“Makes sense.”

“Yeah.”

It's surprisingly calm between the two of them. Chloe isn't sure if this is because Jesse is still in a state of disbelief, or because the concussion has done something to his brain. In her mind, if this scenario was reversed? The Mean Girls scene crosses her mind of Cady and Regina fighting as lionesses. ...She definitely wouldn't have stopped at one punch. Maybe it's the drugs the hospital has him on.

“So… what are you going to do now?” She asks.

“Go home. Move out. Maybe finally leave New York for LA like we always wanted. I think I need to start again.” He frowns. 

“Sounds… nice.”

“Yeah.”

The both stand in an awkward silence whilst Jesse fiddles with the thumb clip thingy on his hand.

“Okay. Well I’m going to go get Beca now.” She gestures to the door, trying to inch away from the tension as fast as she politely is able. He gives her a sad smile, that doesn't reach his eyes.

“Sure. Hey Chloe, look after her yeah? Beca is special.”

The tension finally dissolves. Chloe feels herself relax a bit more.

“That we can both agree on. Good luck film boy.”

“You too red.”

She spins on her heel and starts to make her way out the door-

“Oh hey, actually a couple of other things before you go…”

\----

Beca rounds the corner of the hospital wing tiredly. She was almost envious of Jesse for being asleep through all the legwork she just had to do. Beca was fucking exhausted. Plus, her extra side-quests meant she had had to leave Chloe alone with her ex for another two hours which must have left the ginger feeling pained with awkwardness. Chloe was never subtle about how she felt, ever.

She catches the red-head on her way out of Jesse’s room and nods at her, shoving a vegetarian subway into the ginger’s arms.

“I’m so sorry, I’ve had so much to deal with and I got side-tracked but I bought you your favourite and a coffee.”

Chloe leans over and plants a kiss on Beca's cheek. She makes sure it's out of the sight of Jesse.

“Thank you. He’s in there waiting for you. Go chat, I’ll meet you back at the Bella House.”

Beca can tell there’s more they both want to say to each other, but she still nods and leaves her, walking into the room and dumping the rest of her food bundle on a nearby desk. She can catch-up with Chloe later. There was no... desperation to what they were doing anymore. It was nice, it has certainly made the dynamic between the two much smoother than it had been before.

“Hey.” Beca says meekly.

“Hey. You’ve been crying.” Jesse sees sadly. This is the sort of thing of course that only he could see, because of the intimacy they had shared, even if it was well past an hour ago that she had been.

“Well I’ve just had to tell everyone that our wedding is off officially so, that was fun. Marge took it as well as she could.” She sniffs. “I think your mum is the coolest, so that sort of sucked.”

He gives a her a weak but genuinely warm smile.

“Thank you for telling everyone and sorting it.”

“Yeah. Well, it’s sort of the least I could do isn’t it? They thought we only planned on delaying it a day or too. Amateurs, am I right?”

He can tell she’s beating herself up. Beca always had a habit of beating herself up over every failure she ever made. Until this day he was never quite sure of why. Perhaps he would never know now. Either way he knows he doesn’t really need to make this situation any worse than it already is. It certainly wouldn’t make him feel any better, so what was the point.  Jesse wasn't in the world to make enemies.

“It never went any further than the nudes.” He says.

“What?”

“The hot assistant in L.A. We met up for a date shortly after that had happened, but I- I couldn’t do that to you. Sleep with her I mean, so I ended it.”

There's a giant pause in the conversation. Where she just sort of stares at him in disbelief.

“Jesse that’s- you know it’s still cheating. …Right?”

“I know.”

“We were trying to make up here-” She still continues in that sarcastic manner that he’s so used too.

“I know.”

“-And you doing that, isn’t related to why _I_ cheated either.”

“I know. I just, I wanted to give you the full story on that. I thought it was important.”

She frowns at him. Against his will he releases a small chuckle.

“I see now that it isn’t.”

“You’re in a hospital bed because you got knocked out, _by Chloe_ , who I had sex with like hours before you found me, and you’re worrying about an event that happened maybe two years ago?”

He swallows, a little wounded by that comment. Maybe Beca could have phrased that a tad more delicately?

“I guess I just wanted to know how our relationship survived. With you knowing that about me?”

Beca looks downward.

_“Because I loved you.”_

She admits quietly, and Jesse can see how much it's paining her to be so vulnerable. The event is clearly still quite raw in her memory. The heart-felt reaction nearly makes him loose check of his emotional control yet again.

“And um- so when did you stop?” He starts.

“ _Please don’t make me answer that question_.” She says quickly. So he just swallows his pride and nods. Maybe it was better he didn't actually receive an answer to that one.

“Yeah.”

Jesse suddenly feels too exposed to her now in his paper gown, and pulls the thread-bare hospital blanket up and onto his torso. Meanwhile, Beca picks at the enamel paint at the end of his bed, trying to look anywhere other than at his face. It’s unbearably sore, the distance they’ve manage to create between the two of them. Worse is the fact it also only took them a couple of days to do so. He’s angry at himself for also feeling somewhat relieved. He hasn’t had a chance to fly truly solo since college, and he can feel that a weight of responsibility he projected onto Beca, rightly or wrongly so, has been lifted. He can see the same feelings echoing in her. Looking at her now, it’s an impossible situation. Now, Beca feels like someone who’s been long-lost to him, who has been forced back into his life unwilling. Jesse has no idea what to say. There is the knowledge and recognition of the other person being once important, but the foundations of trust, the fondness of time taken to formulate that, those are all gone. They are strangers once again. And commonly, one feels neither good nor bad about a stranger.

“It feels wrong to say goodbye now.”

“Well. You’ll certainly feel silly doing that once we see each other on our plane ride home.”

Beca playfully rolls her eyes.

“Maybe you take my carry-on and I’ll fly Ryan-Air a day later.”

He lets out a light laugh. Instant response, perfectly straight face. His girl never missed a beat.

“I actually talked to Chloe about that.”

Her eyes widen in panic.

“Wait you did? She didn’t punch you again, did she?”

Jesse shakes his head.

“No, no. She was due to fly out tomorrow to escape our post-wedding, and well she got her flight altered to a couple of days from now. We thought we could switch tickets. She goes home with you, and I get time to sort things out.”

Beca tries to hide how happy an extra couple of days (of their former honeymoon-time mind you) in Australia with just Chloe actually makes her.

“You would do that?”

 **Nope**. She still sounds too happy. Dammit.

“My final gift to you.” Jesse nods. “I’ll be back at ours in the U.S. Waiting to sort things out with you and healing a little, I hope.”

“Jesse…” Beca answers, almost disbelievingly. This man was… so special. Jesse was and had always been one of the sweetest men she’d ever met. Bar the semi-cheating because that sort of sucked. …They really didn’t come any better. She has to stop tears from springing to her cheeks.

“Maybe you can hit up that assistant it LA-”

He throws a pillow at her in mock annoyance.

“Will you STOP.”

Beca can’t help it she bursts out laughing. Jesse shakes his head, amused.

“ _So_ inappropriate.”

\----

Beca didn’t take him to the airport. For one thing, it would have been awkward, and she also doubted that Jesse’s mum would have even let her, had they both wanted it. So, they’d actually said their goodbyes in the end. That was, at least until they had both made their way back to New York. Herself and Chloe had bid adieu to the Bella’s last night, most were returning to their homes in the US, which were cosily dotted all over the country. It had been and emotional if not slightly confused farewell, but this was the Bella’s; Beca seriously doubted their ability as a collective to do anything without at first screwing it up. Including her wedding, apparently. Though they had promised to be there for Beca’s second provided it stayed on U.S. soil.

Amy had murmured things about finishing some business around the rest of Oceania and Beca decided it would be best not to ask her too much about it. The best thing about knowing her best friend was a multi-millionaire now, is that after 5 long years, she’d finally stopped stealing money from Beca’s purse. She’d found 200 dollars in there just before they’d left. Not her own, but clearly some sort of apology reimbursement.

“Someone’s taken out some spending money.”

Amy nodded at her knowingly, but Beca had known the donor was her. Besides she had admitted to it two days later in an attempt to get Beca to buy her some Tequila.

 _“I don’t know about you…”_ A sly voice says from beside her, snapping Beca out her day dream. “But I could seriously do with a re-fill.”

Chloe Beale is lounging beside her in a deck-chair. Mimosa in hand, held in the most garish pink glass she had ever seen. Yet it suited her. Chloe looked flawless always, and Beca had always known and never minded that at all. Now however it had the added bonus of making her feel almost giddy. It was so dumb. Love was dumb. That knowledge and that stripped bikini, made Beca’s head spin. Chloe, personality and all, was drop dead wow, and this woman had the audacity to like her. _HER_ of all people.

“Oh, I’m always up for day-time drinking.” Beca finishes, clinking her beer glass against Chloe’s.

“Who _wouldn’t_ want to drink with me?” Chloe winks back playfully.

“Vain much?”

“I like to think of my confidence as endearing and charming.”

“Well it is always fun to drink with a one-woman party.” Beca notes.

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it yet Mitchell.” Chloe murmurs suggestively. Beca feels her face burn bright red.

“We literally left the bedroom an hour ago, we can’t go back in there yet.” Beca counters.

They couldn’t. They were in their late twenties. They couldn’t. They were near adults. Beca really wanted too though.

“Then how about you watch me swim?” She winks. Beca tries to bury how red her face is going, but she can feel it all the way to the tips of her ears.

“You know I am quite tempted to just sit here and read my book.” Beca hums.

Chloe makes a face. Beca ignores it.

“As long as you don’t meet any sexy pool boys I think I’m fine.” She grins. But Beca doesn’t hear an answer. She waits a second, but no retort comes. Then she looks up. To find no Chloe. Literally anywhere. She sits up in bewilderment. She had literally been looking at her book for about two seconds. How did that happen?

“Chloe! Don’t you dare go near that sexy pool boy without me!” Beca leaps up, joking of course. She was totally kidding. Maybe.

The pool boy just looks up at her in bewilderment. She waves him off, though she’s sure he has questions. Sorry bud, she was a happily taken woman. There was no other person out there in the world for her for certain. Her head darts to the bar, but Beca can’t see her there either. What the hell? Her head scans the rest of the pool crowd but she can’t see Chloe anywhere. The pool itself was certainly decently sized, but it wasn't big enough to lose anybody. That’s what she’d thought anyway.

“Chloe? Chlo?” She calls. Standing up from their deck chairs and moving apologetically in front of other vacationers. _Sorry to mess up your tan, Brenda._

There’s a yell and suddenly Beca is aware she's falling, she can feel a pair of rogue hands have grabbed her around her waist. Before she can register what's going on fully, she's slammed into the pool water. And with a loud splash her hearing becomes swiftly muted. Then the hands on her waist release her. She pushes up from the rough pool floor, eyes still screwed tightly shut against the stinging of the chlorine. Beca sputters to the surface, she gasps for air as she makes eye contact with the playful face of her maybe-girlfriend.

“ _NOT_ cool.” She half yells a little shocked. Her heart is _hammering_ inside her chest. “ _SO_ not cool dude.”

She splashes Chloe over the face. Chloe laughs and spits water at hers. It’s adorable but also so gross. Dammit she still looks gorgeous. Beca imagines herself to look like a drowned rat at best.

“I got you!” Chloe laughs musically.

“You sure did!” Beca answers back, not really sure what she should be getting.

“I mean I got you in the water, stupid!" She rolls her eyes. "Finally, I thought it would take a miracle.”

Beca cracks too.

“You could’ve just asked!” Beca yells, splashing her with the water yet again.

Chloe squeals and they immediately descend into water related chaos. Chloe tries to leap at her then misses, Beca ducks and does the same. With a third and final try, when they’re both gasping and slightly exhausted, and instead of leaping at her, Beca caves and pulls the ginger into a long and watery kiss.

Chloe’s hands slide once again around the smaller woman’s waist. This time in a way that is much sexier, to Beca's relief. Chloe feels Beca’s legs wrap achingly around her torso as she moves to hold onto her. The advantages of water weight could be amazing. Then, Chloe gets an idea and lifts both of them out of the water, just for a couple of seconds. And it feels GREAT. It’s undoubtedly on of the most epic kisses she’s ever shared. But then she cruelly ruins it. She falls back. An unsuspecting and now super turned on Beca, yelling before falling into the water with her. _Again_.

When Chloe surfaces Beca is inches from her face. Staring her down in her most threatening yet nonthreatening way. It the expression she held when she tried to diss Komissar on multiple occasions actually, though it’s weird to be reminded of that right now. She suppresses the need to rolls her eyes. Her girlfriend is SO gay.

“REALLY? Twice? _Twice?”_

Chloe grins.

“I started this war, it’s only fair I end it with a victory.”

Beca hopes no one can see Chloe's hand teasing the front hem of her underwear right now. She swallows down her rapidly increasing libido. Down girl. She resists the temptation with gritted teeth. _Must. Be. A smart ass._

“That’s deep is that from Russian Lit?”

Beca teases. _VICTORY!_ Chloe hums.

“Nationals. Bella victory of 1997.”

“Oh my god, I’m dating a nerd.”

 _Another one_. Beca thinks. But she doesn't really mind. By this point she was fairly certain she had a type.

“You love it.” Chloe says, and Beca pauses a moment. Taking a moment really look her girlfriend up and down.

“Yeah, I think I do.”

Beca smiles. And then of course, the two idiots kiss again.

\----

 THE END

 Epilogue

The two former Bella captains spend a peaceful and joyous non-honeymoon together over the next three days. There’s a lot of cute kissing and cuddling, such as with above and some things that are also  _MUCH_ more graphic. But it feels good and it works, the whole holiday and when they get back home. Over the next six months, Beca moves in with Chloe, and they sell Beca and Jesse’s apartment. Beca also hands custody of Steve back to Amy, who finds him a place on a pleasant reserve in the outback.

Jesse moves off without much hesitation to LA and soon has a new girlfriend and a cat, which he sends Beca a picture of over WhatsApp. He's lovingly called Darth Vader, and Beca (despite the hideous choice of name) wants to smoosh his furry white face and give him all the cuddles.

Amy finishes her "mission" in Oceania, and breaks up with Bumper, which is a big surprise to everyone, but it happens, as Beca and Chloe know all too well. Aubrey meets a guy in the army when visiting her dad called Chicago? And now they’re talking about a reunion to go on tour singing in Europe or something as the Bellas. Which Beca finds insane, but of course she’ll go, because Chloe can’t and won’t stop raving about it which means it’s sort of exciting to her too. It's a competition of course, and apparently, DJ Khaled is signing the victorious group onto his label. Beca knows they don't stand a chance, but if it means potentially getting a different producing job? God, is she keen to go.

Stacie has finally found herself pregnant, but the guy she’s with actually seems pretty cool and wants to stick around, so that counts her out the tour front, but is still some seriously good news. The Legacy could do with her hopes being raised again too, because according to Aubrey she hasn’t been writing and Beca swears is that girl doesn’t use her talents she’s going to use them herself. Jessica and Ashley are trying the knot, and they’re all invited to the wedding next spring. Cynthia Rose is crushing it as American Airlines top pilot is never around for more than a 24hr period which she seems to be loving, so who is Beca to judge? Lilly is… well last time Beca saw her there was a brief mention of a time machine being created so who knows? And Flo has expanded her juice truck empire to 12 different states now, and wants to expand business internationally into Canada and Mexico.  Juice without borders.

And despite their vast differences, they’re all coming together for this tour, which is incredible in itself. Beca thinks that they all could use a lift from each other, to prop eachother up one more time, same as before. They’ll only grow stronger for it. She’s counting the days.

Chloe of course, knew this all already. Because Chloe believes in love, and loving other people with everything she has. It is her meaning in life, like Beca’s is her music. She loves no one more than her family and her girls, and no one more so than Beca Mitchell obviously. It’s great she notices, that each one of them are still looking out for each other. There will always be her Barden Bellas. It's such an amazing revelation. Though with Beca by her side this revelation becomes all the more wonderful. These thoughts all come to her when she's lying on their bed at home, whilst she's playing with a dozing Beca’s hair. This whole scenario makes her feel quite sure in herself for once. Chloe eases into the relaxation. Finally, everything was as it should be. In a state of bliss, she kisses the top of her girlfriend’s head and shuts her eyes. Before she comfortably dozes off next to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... I'm done. Wow. I think that's the first time I've completed a story ever, my English teachers would be proud. As usual I hope I bought the characters justice, and thank you all greatly for reading with me this far. I appreciate every comment (love them), like, and bookmark! Can't believe people actually did that with my story damn. Means a load. Also I know it's a tad late but I wish you all the best for 2018, have a wonderful and adventurous year full of love. 
> 
> xxx

**Author's Note:**

> Hey you guys! I'm so glad I actually got to posting this it was about time. This is my first published fic and I really hope you enjoy it. Props if you spot the references in later chapters because I had great fun putting them in.


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